Corrupting Influence
by Janes Red Eyes
Summary: A prudish intellect vs a self-hating hedonist. It's over as soon as one of them succeeds in bending the other to their will. But domination isn't the same thing as winning. So who's corrupting whom?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Corrupting Influence

Prologue

"The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed in the same scales." – Aesop

BPOV

_The virgin and the whore play at destruction._

I was sure that was what they saw, all the other occupants of this little den of merriment.

The virgin's innocence—_my _innocence—was writ large across a frightened visage. _Control yourself, idiot!_

The whore's depravity was obvious in the unmovable lines of her marble countenance. She could not be surprised, was beyond shock, her features already schooled into a death mask. The voyeurs watched as she wrapped her long red-tipped fingers around my arm.

And to think that I had tried so hard to appear blasé. Shrugging shoulders and letting my glance wander without resting too long on any one scene of wanton abandon. A fool in my best dress finding out that my knickers were out of fashion when a stiff wind exposed them to the world.

But this last bit was too much. I shook my head again.

I stuttered, knowing that I sounded foolish, but the mechanics of this…corruption escaped me. _Do the wolves really expect the lamb to kindly request her own death? _

I started over. "I don't think he'll go along with this."

The whore cackled. It sounded like bells ringing, uncannily melodic, the laughter of a witch. My very own evil stepsister come to life. I wondered if someone put something unseemly in my drink. None of this could be real, could it?

"Isssabelllla," the whore's voice poured over my name, her lilting accent stretching out the consonants, a chant. "If hee'ss not interested, it 'ell not matter, 'ell it?"

She was right. And I was suddenly angry.

She was smoking a cigarette in a holder. A fucking cigarette holder. The smoke curled around her arm. We were sitting at a back table lit only by a candle and a couple of sconces on the walls. Curtains billowed around each table, assuring the patrons' privacy for their debauched revelry. It was Delacroix's _Death of Sardanapalus_, minus the naked dancing girls. I could see limbs snaking in and out of paisley silk, the air rancid with patchouli. And they thought that this was corruption? It was cliché.

But who was I to judge?

Sobering up, I thought about what it was she was asking of me.

I could feel my destruction leering at me, black and cold. Because this would end me. I was sure of it.

I nodded, accepting her terms. _Fuck the world_.

_If the virgin feels like lying to herself_, I thought, _she can pretend that this is where everything changes_. The light caught a bead of sweat on the whore's forehead and the virgin looked away—I looked away—embarrassed by this condescension to corporeal demands.

I knew better than to think that anything would change. I'd always be like this. Empty.


	2. Chapter 1

I don't own Twilight.

Chapter 1 – Trying to Fool

"As soon as I'm left alone / The devil wanders into my soul / And I pretend to myself / And I pretend to myself / I go out / To the old milestone / Insanely expecting / You to come there / Knowing that I wait for you there / That I wait for you there / Come! Come! Come here at once / Come! Come / On a night with no moon / Because all of my being is now in pining / All of my being is now in pining / What formerly had cheered me / Now seems / Insignificant / Insignificant"

P.J. Harvey "The Devil"

EPOV

"You want to take me out?" she asked.

I could hear it in her voice. Fear that I would let her down. Doubt that I would—could—be true to my word. And saddest of all, hope.

Nevertheless, there are matters of decorum, aren't there? I had obeyed the rules for nearly eight years now. Long enough, surely, to have earned some redemption in my family's eyes. Her resistance annoyed me.

"I'll take you out," I heard myself say again.

"I won't be alone," Alice warned.

"Whatever, bring your friends. Just let me know how many so I can make reservations."

"If you're sure."

I had to stop myself from cursing. It wasn't her fault after all. The infinitely optimistic never do understand just how grating they are to the contentedly miserable. "It's no problem. I want to."

"Edward!" Her enthusiasm made me remember why I'd stopped taking her phone calls, her less than dulcet tones easy enough to make out even with the phone more than a few inches away from my ear. "We're going to have so much fun!"

I ignored the incongruity of that statement—to think that there was any one activity that both my sister and I would deem "fun."

When she'd first broached the subject of going into business together, I'd balked. I would have preferred simply to give my sister the money for her new shop in Seattle than have to participate somehow in its management. Yet she'd been so eager to work together that I'd started to believe that perhaps I was capable of picking up where I'd left off, rejoining the family, winning them over one at a time. Maybe I could even bring myself to tolerate Emmett's company.

I had begun to entertain stratagems, all the while knowing that the challenge of behaving like an ordinary person while in their presence might be more than I could handle. And now here I was, the audience waiting with baited breath for me to fail.

"Just take me to all your favorite places," Alice suggested.

"Right Alice," I tried to inject as much excitement as possible into my voice, but came out sounding desperate. _No lollipop for you!_

I bid Alice farewell and hung up. _Take her to all my favorite places?_ I shuddered at the thought.

There were still a few minutes before my break was over. I looked out the window of the doctor's lounge at the street below, resuming the train of thought that had been interrupted when Alice called—_a chair thrown hard enough against the glass_—would it just bounce off or would it actually break through?

I stared at the glass. Supposing the chair did break through, would the hole be large enough, or would the glass just crack, the noise drawing attention? Someone might rush in before I could manage to make the hole large enough for me to jump.

I pressed my fingertips against the cool glass.

A fall from this height might not be enough to kill me.

I glanced up. Bulbous clouds rolled together in a languid embrace. How many times does a person have to consider suicide before the horror, the sense of frisson, evaporates? I should have kept track. Was this new apathy a sign that I was _more_ or _less_ likely to commit suicide? After all, a truly apathetic person wouldn't think _anything_, including death, was worth the effort.

Hmm. I wondered.

The alarm on my cell beeped. My break was over.

*/*/*/*/

"Thank you, sir. I don't know what I would have done without her. Thank you."

I gently tried to disengage myself from the man's grip.

"She's my life," he repeated, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

I glanced at the frail figure on the hospital bed, her hands fluttering delicately even in her sleep.

"She'll be fine," I lied. She wasn't going to be fine. She was going to grow increasingly weak until she died. Then what? Was her husband planning to follow her to the grave out of some misguided sense of loyalty?

"Oh sir," the man's fingers pressed into my bicep with surprising strength. "Please, if there's ever anything I can do for you, please let me know." He proffered a business card and I took it, hoping that would end the ordeal.

"You'll come see us someday," he predicted, releasing my arm.

I beat a hasty retreat, stopping by the nurse's station to check on some test results.

"You going home now, Dr. Cullen?"

I glanced over my shoulder. Jessica Stanley was tapping a pen against her chin, watching me with an adoring expression.

_Idiot_.

I was sure that she would run screaming if she knew what I really did to the women in my life.

I nodded curtly, unwilling to encourage a relationship that would do neither of us any good.

She perked up. "Some of the other nurses and I are going down to CoCo Sala for drinks if you want to come."

I couldn't help but notice the Chief Nurse, Mildred Cope, frowning at Jessica in disappointment. "Sorry," I demurred. "Happy hours are hardly my scene."

"Oh. Well ok then." Jessica struggled to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Have a good night then!"

Two minutes later, I was outside the hospital and standing in the rain, realizing that I'd forgotten my umbrella in my locker. I glanced back at the doors of the hospital and narrowed my eyes. Suffer a minor drenching? Or, deliver myself back into the arms of overly needy hypochondriacs and horny nurses who'd be certain to go running to the board of trustees? _Fuck that_.

I threw my arm out for a cab. Of course the one that pulled up had an advertisement for a strip club on the side, the woman in the photo sporting artificially plumped features. I grimaced at the sight and climbed in, giving the driver an address and scowling out the window at the rain. Oh, it was all fine and well that little kids and grandmothers had to look at ads for strip clubs on the sides of cabs, but God forbid the board of trustees find out where I really spent my nights. I'd be out of a job so fast that my stethescope would get caught in the door. They wouldn't care how discreet I was. Ha! They'd probably get a kick out of exposing everything—bandying the story around like a vintage trading card at one of their damn country club mixers. The thought of my mother or Alice hearing about it that way turned my stomach. I had to grit my teeth against a wave of nausea.

The driver let me off in front of a coffee shop and I decided to go inside and order a coffee just for good measure. And I pretended to drink, sitting at a well-cushioned chair by the window where I could keep an eye on the front entrance of the club across the way and down the street.

A whisper.

I could hear it again in the back on my mind as I tried to force myself to relax and forget about work. The quiet whispering reminder that was just another symptom of the background panic had plagued me all day—a shy pain hiding its face but nonetheless unbearable for all its faux coyness. The anxiety had been tolerable today, but only with my jaw clenched and unceasing vigilance. Mustn't slip. Mustn't give way. Monster in angel's skin that I was and Jessica Fucking Stanley thinking she wanted a piece of this. I'd ruin her and she'd never see it coming. But I couldn't let anyone know that, could I? I'd offered a smile here, a pat on the head there. A sticker for Timmy who broke his arm falling off the merry-go-round. If only they knew.

Cover all the cracks and hide.

Fifteen patients today, all thanking me for my services, as if I was a hero.

I sat in the coffeehouse and watched a couple walk into Breaking Dawn, hand in hand. I wondered if they'd walk out the same way. Perhaps they'd only managed to stay together as a couple because they were going to a place like Breaking Dawn. If so, it couldn't be all bad, could it? So what if we weren't all cookie-cutter white bread American do-gooders?

I realized that my fingers had curled into fists in my lap. I took a breath, forcing my hands to uncurl, pressing my palms down on my knees.

_I'll never go back_, I thought to myself, but I wasn't sure which hell I was promising to forsake—the sham that was a my life as a physician-hero or the club down the street that ruined me and consoled me and ruined me again.

_I could disappear in there. Gnaw off my own arm before I got out_.

Or.

_Fifteen patients and a smile here, a pat there. Timmy, here's a sticker for you._

My cell rang. Alice. I thought about not answering and letting it go to voicemail. But if anyone ever did find out about Breaking Dawn, I would need Alice in my corner.

"Hello?" I tried to sound upbeat. Why is it that a person is always required to sound upbeat? You would think it would be enough that I hadn't broken the window of the doctor's lounge yet.

"Edward, there will be four of us, including you and me. Is that ok because if it isn't, I don't mind. I can make other arrangements. It won't bother me."

For just a second, I considered telling her that it _was_ too much. That I couldn't be there for her. Not now. Not ever. And not because of anything she'd done, but because I just wasn't here anymore. Gone.

"Alice, please stop." The sound of my voice surprised me. It was so…what had I become? I cleared my throat. "Four is fine. I'll pick you up at 6."

I held the cell away from my ear while she squealed.

"Thank you Edward! See you then!"

I hung up before she could say squeak any more at me and shouldered my way out of the coffee shop, turning away from the club and towards my apartment. I was exhausted anyhow. I had no business going there tonight.

Fumbling in my pocket for my keys, I felt a square of cardboard. I pulled it out and scanned it before crumpling it up and throwing it away. _Bella Italia._ I wondered if the stupidly grateful husband would keep the restaurant after his wife died, or if her illness would eat up all of his dreams.

"I'm Rich / Like a hot noise / Rich Rich Rich / I'll take you out boy / So stuck up / I'd wish you'd stick in to me / Flesh ripped off / Rawr / Turnin' it beatin' no beat / The walls are always speakin' / No want no want no want no speakin' at all / She slipped down a rot drink unzipped she doesn't exist / So unloved / I took 'em standin' up / So stuck up / Rawr / I'm Rich…"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Rich"

BPOV

When she told me that she knew Edward Masen, I nearly choked on my wine. _'One medicine, my friend, alone is fit—wine—and get drunk on it.'_ A jolt went through me at the mere sound of his name. She called him Cullen, but I knew who she meant.

Looking at her, it made absolute sense. _'Hair and breast steeped in perfume, she would wake desire in an old man.' _I didn't ask for details. I didn't want to know.

Unfortunately, she didn't reciprocate. But how do you tell a story like that? How do the words even make it out of your mouth?

And then she made her proposal. I was horrified. How could she suggest such a thing after what I'd just told her?

Commonsense kicked in and I calmly inquired if she was fucking stupid. There was Edward Masen and then there was everyone else.

She pointed out that it would work or it wouldn't. It was up to me to try.

In the days that followed, my anxiety returned tenfold. It was upsetting enough to realize that Edward Masen and I lived in the same city. Which shows that fear's all in the mind, because if he'd been in Seattle all this time and I'd never noticed, then he couldn't really hurt me, could he?

I was fine, after all. Untrampled.

Every night I came home and locked the door behind me. All was safe. Not one sign of damage, barbarians at the gate be damned.

Nevertheless, merely the rumor of danger in the hills left me with a sense of disquiet. Appearances could be deceiving. For all I knew, the Cullens owned the street I was living on.

I gave up at last and used my laptop to look up the online staff directory for the University of Washington Medical Center. "Masen" didn't work, so I tried "Cullen" instead, clicking on the result and squinting at the screen. I waited impatiently for it to load, only to freeze when the flash of white pain shot through me.

_There _hewas. Smiling, naturally, cocky and secure. _Don't you want to leave your impressionable sons and nubile daughters with me_? Hadn't changed at all.

I reminded myself to be rational. The hospital couldn't very well add a caption like: _Warning, this here fellow eats human hearts and sells babies to goblins._ Icy green eyes glared at me, hair flaming over his skull as though he'd been dipped in bronze and hung upside down to dry.

I sat on my bed, staring at my laptop so long that the screensaver came on. I ran a finger over the mouse and jumped when _his_ face lit up the screen again. I shook my head. That wouldn't do. Not at all.

Jumping up, I put the laptop down on my coffee table and grabbed a rag. Starting to clean, I wiped down the already dust-free book shelves in front of my futon, spinning around every so often to run a finger over the mouse so that _his _face could sneer back at me as I worked. The same white pain shot through me every time and I'd have to force myself to look away, to concentrate on my task.

I was certain to build up a tolerance if I kept on like this. Soon enough, he'd have no affect on me whatsoever. I was sure of it.

I told myself this as my heart beat erratically. I had my back turned towards the laptop, but I knew that _he_ was there, waiting behind me, watching. I bit my lip.

Dear God, who was I trying to fool?

**AN**

'_One medicine, my friend, alone is fit—wine—and get drunk on it.' _

'_Hair and breast steeped in perfume, she would wake desire in an old man.' — _Archilochus


	3. Chapter 2

I don't own Twilight.

Chapter 2 - Destroy the Cullens

"Because one of her lovers had misbehaved himself with another woman, she changed him with one word into a beaver, because when that animal is afraid of being captured it escapes from its pursuers by cutting off its own genitals." Apuleius

BPOV

There are twenty-three books in the Port Angeles _Borders_ addressed to the conundrum of winning friends and influencing people. I read every one of them cover to cover my Junior year of high school, sitting in Literature section, with _90 Seconds to a New You _and _Dating for Dummies_ stuck inside book jackets for Ben Jonson and Milton lest anyone know the depths to which I'd sunk.

So it's not true that I didn't care. It's not true that I didn't try.

But it's so hard, isn't it, to be someone other than yourself? If you change, it's acknowledging that they're right. You become someone that they could like, and spit on the person you used to be, '_dishonored, worth nothing, in the dark corner kenneled like a vicious dog._'

I tried, telling myself that this time I'd make them like me. I told myself that I'd be witty, inserting the perfect quip at the perfect time.

I never bothered to tell myself that I could be pretty, but I endeavored to be less unattractive than I had in the past. I never again wanted to be a spectacle, did I? Subject to their ridicule?

Everything you need to know about a person is revealed in the first ten seconds, or so one of these books told me. I had just ten seconds to blow it or make it.

In the first ten seconds of our acquaintance, Dr. Volturri looked me up and down like a piece of meat, and sneered. How could I blame her for recognizing the truth? If anything, I admired the degree to which she disregarded everyone but herself.

To be sure, Dr. Jane Volturri had demonstrated to me time and again just how very little she thought of me. And lest I should mistakenly imagine that I had risen in her esteem, she was presently fifteen minutes late for our appointment.

_I don't give a fuck what Dr. Volturri thinks of me_, I lied myself when I realized that she was late. I sat down on the floor outside her office and propped open my copy of _The Bacchae_. '_Bitter was the shame yet did me, when Thebes honored not my name_.' I was popping my bubblegum when she swung around the corner.

"Get up," she tsked. "You look like an undergraduate."

Why looking like an undergraduate should have bothered me, I didn't know. Regardless, I stood, waiting as she unlocked her door and led the way inside.

"Thank you for meeting me," I said, knowing full well she felt that she was going out of her way simply doing her job.

"Yes, well, it had to be done before I could allow you to TA for me, didn't it?"

I didn't reply, not wanting to give her any ammunition. Taking a seat, I pulled out a pen and notebook in readiness to pretend that whatever she had to say was worth writing down.

Dr. Volturri examined me over her desk. I had thought it would be funny to fuck with her, dressing not to impress. I was second guessing myself now, though, the neon green and orange scarf scratching my neck and the cheap wooden chopsticks that I'd stuck into my messy hair digging into my skull.

Dr. Volturri was dressed impeccably of course. Skin tight red skirt, a black silk dress shirt, and the smoothest ponytail I'd ever seen. With the added height of her four inch heels, she still only came up to my chin when standing. We were wearing the same shade of lipstick, however. Harlot. It clashed with my scarf.

Abandoning her visual critique, she started in on the verbal one. "I hope we won't have a repeat of last semester's difficulties, Miss Swan."

"I don't know what you mean," I responded, knowing very well what she meant.

"I mean of course you're problems with grade inflation."

"Dr. Banner reviewed the grades in question and agreed with my assessments."

"Then how do you explain the higher percentage of As in your classes compared to the other TAs?"

"I'm a better teacher." I shrugged, trying to appear indifferent as I squeezed my left hand into a fist in my lap. Dr. Volturri didn't know just how much of my free time was spent reading book after book, blog after blog, studying tips and hints: How to be a Better Teacher in 5 Easy Steps.

I knew better than to let her see how she was affecting me, her Lady of Shallot, as she liked to joke. How, she had asked me so many times, could I pretend to write about life when I had never lived it? Hence her insistence on paring me with Angela, lest I escape unscathed. '_Like a rosy apple on a high branch is the maiden; the pickers have forgotten her.' _I was better off becoming a librarian, she'd said. My breath suddenly caught in my throat, recalling Dr. Volturri's recriminations, her unforgiving disdain for my defense of _intellectual _history.

She laughed. "You're very sure of yourself."

I cleared my throat. "I don't think talking above a person's head is a useful manner of instruction."

"Ah yes, that is another problem isn't it? I've observed that your discussion groups exhibit a shocking lack of decorum."

_Be brave_, I told myself. "It's hard to show much decorum when discussing Aristophanes' take on the shortage of dildos during the Peloponnesian War."

"Discipline is surely a higher form of instruction than laughter, don't you think?"

'_Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men once and for all.' _I let the anger give me courage. "Straightjackets hardly make for the freedom of thought that's required to push the _discipline_ of scholarship further."

"You would be surprised what straightjackets can accomplish," Dr. Volturri clarified.

_O—-kay_.

"In any case," she continued, "I'm not persuaded that your methods are trustworthy. One might imagine that you were teaching to the test."

"That's hardly possible since I don't know what will be on the tests anymore than the students themselves."

"Hmm," she pretended to pout, eerily childlike despite her advanced age and fearsome demeanor. She was like the demon spawn from _The Bad Seed_ with a PhD. "In any case, you should know that I will be keeping a close eye on you this semester and making unannounced visits to your classes. Now, how is your prospectus coming?"

"Very well, thank you." I tried to force myself to calm down.

"I have often found myself wondering why you are drawn to the Ancient Mediterranean program. Women are more often to be found in the Medieval or Early Modern programs."

I shook my head, wondering if she was serious. I was a dissertation away from graduating, and she wanted to question me about my area of study now?

Not waiting to hear my reply, she sighed. "It's only that I tire of little females who imagine that the insertion of a vagina is all that is required to introduce alterity. I am not interested in dissertations on the fashion trends revealed by the Empress Justinian's clothing in the San Vitale mosaic."

I was taken aback. "I don't believe my work suggests that I would take such a route." What the fuck was she talking about?

Dr. Volturri shook her head. "If only I could feel confident that your work justified that confidence. Your naïvete at times still astounds me. I suppose I should be grateful that I am capable of surprise after so many years of undergraduate foolishness, but I shudder to think how you might undermine the discipline. Have you taken my advice and spoken with Angela Weber?"

My fingers curled around my pen and I looked down at the useless notepad. I cleared my throat. "I have," _I hate you,_ "and she has been very helpful." _You're a monster._

"How helpful? I don't want her writing your dissertation for you."

I felt myself grimacing. "Since she studies Victorian England, and my prospectus is on literature in the Late Antique Roman Empire, I hardly think that she could write it for me."

"You are intelligent–I won't deny that. Still, I wonder how much a mere _verbal_ exchange can do. You have gone beyond the point where _cerebral_ aids will prove of assistance. I think _experience_ might be called for."

This was ridiculous. I could make one call to the Dean's Office and file a complaint. The students would be lining up in droves behind me. But that would be like admitting that I couldn't succeed on her terms. I wanted the bitch to have to look me in the eye and congratulate me the day they handed my diploma over.

I took a deep breath. "Angela has helped me with that as well."

Dr. Volturri raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. "I am pleased to hear it. That is all. You're dismissed."

I blinked. What the fuck?

"Thank you." Why the hell was I thanking her? "Dr. Volturri, I'm very excited to be working with you this semester." I stood up and shouldered my backpack.

It is a fiction that women would make kinder rulers. We are all of us cannibals. Especially gender studies professors and their TAs.

She tilted her head towards the door and I made my escape.

I went up one floor to the graduate computer lab, telling myself that I was lucky to have gotten away so easily. Logging onto one of the computers, I accessed the hospital's directory, and clicked on Masen's picture. I watched his face emerge from the color printer, centimeter by centimeter. If I really didn't care, why did it hurt just to look at him?

I shoved the picture in my backpack and turned to leave, only to come face-to-face with the new Graduate Director's secretary. He'd come upstairs to replace the toner and I was so distracted that I hadn't even heard him walk into the room.

_90 Seconds to a New You_.

1. Smile. People like people who seem to like them.

2. Act interested. People want to be liked.

I smiled. "You're the new secretary aren't you?" I congratulated myself for sounding like I cared. "I'm so happy to meet you." Because otherwise, I'd have to replace the toner myself, wouldn't I? "Welcome to the department." Because I admired people who could manipulate others to their advantage, and even if real manipulation took more effort than I'd ever willingly put forth, I didn't want the new secretary to think I was a bitch, did I?

I had to shake his hand. I smiled and grit my teeth through it. Damp frog-skinned freak. I was out of hand wipes and had to go to the bathroom to wash my hands before I could leave.

Constancy is a mark of the beast. Animals lack the self awareness to realize the irrationality of their own actions, to really turn a problem over and examine it from every angle. If they could, we would never have left the muck.

So the best thing to do is to make a decision and allow no time for analysis. Work is the remedy.

I walked dogs (negotiable rates), put barcodes on books at the library ($7/hr), worked on my discussion outlines for the class I was TAing ($0/hr at least until they deposited my first check), rewrote and rewrote the introduction of my prospectus (perfection is its own reward), started the past tense for the group of seven year olds I was tutoring in French ($15/hr per student), wrote a review of _Bloody Reunion_ for an internet Web site that was trying to replace Netflix ($20/review), and put up fliers around campus advertising my services as a proofreader ($10/hr). I thought about calling my father but didn't–what would we talk about?–and ignored an email from my sister and reorganized my bookcases so that there were double rows instead of triple rows on each shelf and cleaned my entire basement apartment from top to bottom three times (obsessive compulsive disorder is known to be exacerbated by stress). Finally, out of desperation, I waxed my motorcycle, remembering to check the oil and the tire pressure.

I went so far as to read Dr. Volturri's comments on my prospectus.

Flipping through the pages at random, I felt my mouth fell open in shock. _**How very romantic**_, she'd written next to my summary of Joseph and Aseneth's marriage._** Pity this is a dissertation, not a Harlequin novella.**_

I shook my head. It couldn't get much worse, could it? I skipped to the last page: _** Too bad Plato's model "beloved" was a young boy.**_ I gritted my teeth.

"The endurance of the signifier was a distraction." I'd written, making what I considered to be a particularly safe argument. "It was evidence that the Neoplatonic aspirant had not achieved full assimilation with the divine, thus rendering gender an artifact of the fleshy body that would disappear in the world to come."

And what did she write? _**Let's pray none of the graduates in queer studies attends your defense**_.

I threw my prospectus down.

_Remember your Seneca_, I told myself. _Be reasonable._

I grabbed my copy of _Letters to a Stoic _off of the shelf. _Calm down._ I flipped to a passage at random: '_Shall I tell you what philosophy holds out to humanity? Counsel_.' Exactly what I needed. '_Why do philosophers like you abandon the magnificent promises you have made?'_ What? No, that wouldn't help. I skipped to another page and took a deep breath, trying to relax. _'What do you say? Is this the way to the heavens?'_ It had better be. '_Isn't it the height of folly to learn inessential things when time's so desperately short?'_ Indeed. Time _is_ short. Too short for cockblocking bitches in Gender Studies.

I huffed to myself and crossed my arms, glaring at my prospectus on the futon next to me, Masen's picture peeking out underneath. There he was, in the source of so much anxiety and yet I felt no jolts of discomfort this time. No sick nauseous fear. So at least I was making progress where he was concerned.

I spent the rest of the day trying to better myself with redeeming literature, wanting to see in myself '_not just an improvement but a transformation_.'

An ill-omened package arrived in the mail the next day. _Forsooth!_ I sent my fairy godmother a frantic text.

She called within the hour. "Are you trying to back out?" she demanded.

_She has an accent_, I realized. It lent her a sense of authority, the slurring from that night at the club gone.

"You have to wear it," she coolly informed me. "Alice Cullen _must _be impressed." What had happened to the sympathy from before?

I tried reasoning. "Alice knows I don't have any money. She'll be suspicious about where the outfit came from."

"A gift from a friend."

"All of it?" I gasped. The package contained a dress, shoes, a clutch, a necklace, a bracelet, a ring, fucking sunglasses and a goddamn headband. I would look like Jackie O.

"All of it."

I argued a little longer, but what was the point? '_Loud pretending boasters, brave but in tongue, and cowards in the field._' I gave in.

Thus it was that I, a clever fool dressed above my station, set out to confront Alice Cullen that very afternoon. It was almost comedic.

Consider: A reunion of false friends.

Scene: Shop for clothes and accessories. Alice Cullen apparently insisted that it be called a boutique.

Characters: Old friends who never should have been friends in the first case because what did they have in common?

_Overcoming Social Awkwardness: _Lesson #1 You're self awareness is your own enemy.

I wandered around the shop, pretending to be interested in the ugly wares, ignoring Alice as she stood by the register, carrying on about some new rings she wanted to start carrying. I bowed my head over a display of clay jewelry that looked as if it had been manufactured by five year olds.

Alice would have to make the first move. My fairy godmother had instructed me to take the lead if I had to, but I had no intention of doing so. If Alice didn't care to acknowledge me then this was all an utter waste of time. After all, it was impossible that she not recognize me. If she chose to preserve the pretense of ignorance, then I'd no choice but to abandon this project.

And count my blessings that I'd gotten off so lightly.

"Izzy? Izzy is that you?"

I unintentionally cringed at the name, clutching at the sunglasses in my hand. No one called me Izzy any more, but Alice couldn't know that, and probably wouldn't care if she did.

I forced myself to spin around, miming surprise and blinking at this creature claiming to know me. An _imposter _me. I managed to find my voice. "Hello?"

"Izzy!"

And before I realized what she was going to do, Alice had catapulted herself around the counter and thrown herself at me. I shied back from her upraised arms, but she grabbed me in a fierce embrace.

I froze, uncertain.

I had expected her anger, her indifference, her disdain. Not this.

Her reaction should have made me happy—it meant that this plan of mine might work. Instead, I wanted to pull away. I would have preferred that she ignore me, laugh at me, punch me. Anything but this, an exuberance not easily contained within the parameters I had established for this experiment.

She was _touching _me.

Best reply in kind. I endeavored to return the embrace, patting her on the shoulder.

"You're in Seattle?" she cried. "I didn't know."

There was no reason she _should_ know. We hadn't spoken for nine years.

In any case, her question was moot. Unless laws of space had been seriously compromised, I _was_ in Seattle. She really meant: was I _staying_ in Seattle or _how long_ had I been in Seattle? I pretended that these were the questions she'd asked.

"I'm getting my doctorate."

Alice scrunched up nose in confusion. Yes, a doctorate is a _school_ thing.

"Do you like my boutique?" she asked.

And we are off to the races. I could have been a broken doll–_Pull her string and make her talk_–my string pulled out and my jaw shattered, simply drooling on my Sunday best, because she was a good one, Alice was, not needing friends, or at least not me, to carry on a conversation or a friendship.

Lying to Alice Cullen didn't bother me, I decided as she chattered at me, not morally at least. The action had no meaning outside my definition of it and since it was to my benefit, I didn't see why I shouldn't do it. I told myself to ignore my qualms, pretending not to notice how her smile felt like a knife at the heart.

Deceiving her, after all, _was_ to my benefit. It was for the achievement of material gains and therefore beneath me, but why should I have to keep barcoding and walking dogs and proofreading other people's words and growing sick with exhaustion just to keep myself out of debt? If deceiving Alice Cullen meant just seven more hours of sleep a week, then it was worth it.

Of course, deception in this case required the willful refusal to acknowledge logical inconsistencies. By all rational measures, Alice Cullen should want to have nothing to do with me. She was pretending not to know that, just as I was pretending not to hate her for it. It was difficult to believe that she could be so obtuse as to prefer face-saving lies over the truth. Yet she clearly preferred pretense to indifference. It boggled the mind.

So I swallowed my pride and forced myself to smile back at her, benefiting from all those years of practice at smiling when I wanted to cry. I felt a fluttering in my chest, a heretofore unexpected sensation, pain where there should have been no feeling at all, and I tried to ignore it. I watched Alice Cullen bounce in front of me and I had to clench my hands into fists lest she see them shaking. I had to dig my fingernails into my palms to stave off tears. And I was not a person to cry. Not anymore.

I felt guilty for contemplating such treachery against myself.

Then I noticed Alice's eyes skimming my dress and it all came together.

It was the dress. I was wearing an outfit worth hundreds of dollars and Alice Cullen had suddenly seen fit to treat me like a human being.

Any misgivings I had up until that second evaporated. I would destroy the Cullens.

**Fic rec: This one is old but good, and I want to encourage her to write the sequel: "Mr. Horrible" by algonquinrt. The sequel is being written under the name d0tpark3r.**

'_Dishonored, worth nothing, in the dark corner kenneled like a vicious dog._' — Aeschylus

'_Bitter was the shame yet did me, when Thebes honored not my name_.' — Euripides

'_Like a rosy apple on a high branch is the maiden; the pickers have forgotten her.' — _Sappho

'_Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men once and for all.' — _Hesiod

'_Loud pretending boasters, brave but in tongue, and cowards in the field._' — Sophocles

'_I see in myself, Lucilius, not just an improvement but a transformation_.' – Lucius Annaeus Seneca


	4. Chapter 3

If I owned Twilight or any of its characters I wouldn't have said "Yes" when my boss offered me a ridiculous raise to supervise raging idiots.

And please, note the title of this chapter. I blame the Internet for the destruction of my moral compass.

Chapter 3 - My Collection of Corpses

BPOV

I was well away from Alice's shop—having walked two blocks before catching the bus lest she spy me taking such a demeaning form of transport—before I realized how little Alice must still think of me, letting herself imagine that I could so easily forgive and forget everything that had happened.

Knowing better than to dwell on incidentals, I forced myself to concentrate on my Apuleius on the bus ride home. An ass reading about an ass. Appropriate subject matter for a fool.

Once back in my humble abode, I allowed myself a brief lapse as I stood in my kitchen looking at Masen's face on my microwave.

_Mirror, mirror on the wall._

Was it possible that Masen had become as delusional as his sister?

No, there was no way that he could see me for anything other than what I was: a stitched-up doll. The notion that I could approach the Cullens on some kind of equal footing was beyond incongruous. It was grotesque.

Alice had grown up in a mansion. I had grown up in a trailer park in Arizona. Masen may have had a jaded past, but the Cullens had taken him in and he was one of them now. Besides, he was beautiful—even I had to admit that. And he was clever, diabolically so. I was far from beautiful—the compliments of old women and gas station attendants do not count—and I may have been clever, but I didn't have the kind of intelligence required to compete with Masen. Plato's Philosopher Kings indeed. At least I was wise enough to know my place.

I took off the dress and stood in my underwear in front of the mirror in my bathroom, considering.

It's not low self esteem if it's true. '_I'll tell you what, if you are a good girl, my little pork cuntlet, I'll buy your freedom and keep you as my concubine._' Random pawing and rough groping are not compliments.

I turned away from the figure in the mirror, pale flesh glittering almost violet in the filtered light, and shoved my clothes on. I knew those lines well. No need to remind one's self of rounded bulges and divots over earth ravaged for want of rain, and around it all, a snake wound lest I lapse in my vigilance. Loacoon, I'd told the tattoo artist, it's Loacoon. _And what fate have you yet to heed?_

A handful of suitors, if men of the fleeting acquaintance of a few hours can be granted such a lofty title, had in their desperation turned to me. It's true that some of them tried to impress me with what they had to say. But it was a doomed enterprise. Rather like me walking into an open heart surgery and offering suggestions to the anesthesiologist. Why bother?

Nevertheless, I did give them credit for trying.

Learning my area of study, they'd say that they had enjoyed _The 300_. So I'd ask for their thoughts on federally-funded showings of Robert Maplethorpe's gay porn.

They'd name some local band that was just getting started, and I'd reply with Sabjilar or The Pillows.

They'd recommend Spielberg and I'd say Fruit Chan.

Dan Brown and Steven King, they'd hazard. I, sniffing delicately, would recommend Umberto Eco and Ambrose Bierce.

They'd cite a recent Op-Ed piece from _The New York Times_ and I'd defer to Marx's _18__th__ Brumaire._

Whatever they knew, whatever they thought they knew, I knew better. If by chance there was something I didn't know, it was because I didn't care to. For every original idea they thought they had, I'd offer up the names and dates of at least five commentators.

They all failed. Every one.

But so did I, because if I was worth having, they'd keep trying.

I stalked out of the bathroom and pulled down that picture of Masen so that I could study him up close. I couldn't treat him like everyone else. I couldn't arch an eyebrow at him and sip on a drink, daring him to say something stupid so that I could laugh in his face. I had to pretend that I thought he was interesting. And I had to be interesting to him, if such a miracle were even possible.

My fairy godmother was doing her best. She'd scheduled me for spa appointments and had sent me magazines with tips. It reminded me of high school, when Alice Cullen was still speaking to me and she treated me like a pet project. Fix the broken girl. All of the effort expended on my behalf simply confirming that I was a mistake, so utterly undesirable in my natural state that large scale demolition was required before I could be put back together. How could anyone expect me to have any confidence after that?

All these years later, the prospect of walking into a spa filled me with horror. I shuddered just imagining the expressions on the employees' faces as they looked me over, as they tried not to chuckle out loud at the notion that I could be made to appear enticing. I had given the spa appointments to Angela, telling her to use my name.

I'm not stupid. I had no desire to play Medusa to Masen's Perseus. I was happy on my own, and I had no desire to force myself on someone. I'd never felt the temptation to _settle_, accepting another person's failings simply because I couldn't do any better. I had neither the inclination nor the necessity to change. At least not until now.

And thus '_the anchors loose their grip. And now a billow, greater than the first, rushes upon us, fraught with perils grave, while the ship plunges deep into the wave_.'

"I dream of you draped in wires / And leaning on the brakes / As I leave you with restless liars and dealers on the take. / And I can read you like a gumshoe / watch this meeting hall sweat and shake. / I'll take you on. / And strike you with desire of fault lines / No clutch, no storm. / I can bind you with no ties and leash, and watch you fall. / You see I've got this soul it's all fired up / I teach you of death's desires / Reflected in lakes, / As I lead you in a fearful file to a precipice of fate. / And I welcome you, / I welcome your sweethearts that bleed and break. / I'll take you on when your will is gone. / You're all mine."

Interpol "All Fired Up"

EPOV

I stared at the staring eyes. They gaped, bulbous in the bloated flesh. The man had only been dead five minutes and already he'd taken on a waxy sheen. But he'd come in that way, well prepared for the death to come. The end was inevitable, even as I'd applied the paddles to his gray chest, struggling to exert my will in an arena where I was next to powerless.

I was alone with him now. Everyone else had left the room, hurrying away because they had other cases, or simply because they were desperate to distance themselves from the miasma of decay. All the frenetic energy expended to keep this man alive, stilled in an instant, as if it had never happened. Just like this man's life.

I stared down at him. He fairly buzzed with the mutation of life after death, the microscopic organisms that took root only upon his decease. What a boon he provided in dying. And the peace he'd achieved—be he in heaven or hell, or erased in the ether—at least he wasn't here. So lucky.

I envied him. My God, how I envied him.

It would be so easy too. Just slice my wrist with the same scalpel I'd used on him. I could bleed out before someone found me. I could become just like him, doing more good dead than alive. Were it not for the possibility, the promise, that I could die at any moment, I don't think that I could bear the everyday struggle of living.

The whites of the man's eyes were milky swirls, the blackheads on his bulbous nose were dark pits, and the flabby flesh of his lips was a meaty paradise. He was utterly grotesque. He was unspeakably fascinating. Staring at him, I forgot, for a whole thirty seconds, that I existed. There was only him and his spider veined skin. How utterly reassuring to know that I could become him in an instant.

A nurse burst through the doors and froze, staring at me in shock.

"Dr. Cullen, your shift was over fifteen minutes ago."

"Was it?"

She nodded dumbly.

I glanced down at the corpse and sighed.

"It's okay," she reassured me. "You did everything you could to keep him alive."

A strange gurgling sounded from my chest and I jerked away from the table. Of course I'd done everything to keep him alive. It was my job, and the sometime joy of forcing nature to submit to my will was a true pleasure. But it was a useless endeavor and I knew it. Perhaps that was part of its charm. Death was perpetually around the corner.

I had to get out of that room before I burst out laughing and the nurse thought that I'd lost my mind. If only I _could_ lose my mind. I would relish the loss of my reason.

I hurried towards the locker room, remembering that I was taking Alice to dinner tonight with her friends. Fan-fucking-tastic. I was going to be great company. It didn't help that Alice already had Esme calling to check up on me, and my faux mother's obvious delight at my return to the family fold was carefully tempered with caution as she plainly worried if I meant to cannibalize myself in front of them. I was a little stunned to realize that I cared about her distress. I hadn't realized that I was still capable of such emotion.

I shook my head as I grabbed my raincoat, trying to dispel the images of a bloated corpse from behind my eyes. I had to make it through this evening somehow. I had to act normal.

_You don't have to _be_ normal_, I promised myself as I slammed my locker shut. _You only have to _act_ normal._

I could do that, couldn't I?

"_Girls work hard for small rewards or invitations to dine / One kind word from one who loves them but what I've earned is mine / The terrible flames of all that remains of my little shirtwaist fire."_

"Little Shirtwaist Fire" Rasputina

BPOV

For the past two days, I had done everything I could to keep my mind off my quickly approaching doom. I had worked on my prospectus and had written discussion notes and had stapled up fliers and had put barcodes on new books and had walked dogs. When the Cinderella dress from my fairy godmother arrived, I had spared it only enough attention to hang it from the front of my closet where it wouldn't be wrinkled. I had let it glare at me. _Glare away!_ I wouldn't think about it.

My subconscious was less cooperative. For two nights in a row, I had dreamt of high school. I was jostled and shoved in the hallways. I was watched and mocked as I tried to escape notice. I would wake up nauseous and trembling.

I didn't understand these dreams. I didn't let things like this bother anymore. I had long since accepted my place in life.

All this nonsense with the Cullens was bringing unwanted memories to the surface. If I was already having nightmares, how was I going to be able to go through with the rest of it? Yet I'd come too far. I couldn't back out now.

Thus I found myself at last, struggling to force myself into the dress that my fairy godmother had sent for the evening's entertainment: Watch the dead girl play at life.

And just like Cinderella's sisters with the shoe, I couldn't make that dress do what dresses were supposed to do. There were far too many yards of fabric, too many ties along the sides. So there I was, trying to get dressed up for the ball with ash still smudging my cheeks.

With five minutes left, I gave up, changing back into the outfit that I'd worn to school that day—uniformish and meek—black skirt and black top. At least it wasn't jeans, or my usual flannel and Converse. It couldn't be said that I wasn't trying.

Besides, it wasn't as if I was going to fool anyone, especially _him_.

I went outside to wait for Alice, not wanting to inconvenience her by making her come to the door, while also hoping that she'd forgotten or that she'd been joking and had never intended to come after all. I pulled out my cell and turned it on in case she'd already left a message saying that she had changed her mind.

_Please God, let her have cancelled._

My cell was still turning on when someone called my name. I looked up to see Alice's head poking out of the front passenger's side window of a silver Volvo on the corner.

_Fuck. _

"Hi," Alice yelled again, waving her hand energetically.

_Move, you idiot, react_. I found my hand rising to wave back. _It doesn't mean anything_, I told myself. _You're just acting. And she's just—_I could think of no explanation for her behavior. Could she really be this lonely? No, she had to have an ulterior motive. But what could someone like me possibly have to offer someone like her? For just a second, I wondered if she was actually planning some grand humiliation for me, as a sick form of entertainment. It didn't matter. She couldn't hurt me anymore. And if she really was this lonely, she'd find another diversion soon enough, and I'd be left mercifully alone.

I sprang to life, puppet strings jerking my limbs forward as I stumbled awkwardly towards the car, the last vehicle in a line waiting in traffic wrapped around the block. As the traffic started to move forward, I hurried, anxious about the delay I was causing. Then, stupidly, just as I reached the front of the car, I let my eyes wander towards the driver, and shuddered as a jolt of electricity shot through me without warning.

It was _him_! Masen was driving the car.

How? Alice hadn't said anything about him. It was too soon for this! I wasn't ready!

There wasn't time to panic though. I looked away from him quickly, not wanting to catch his eye, and hurried around the car, wrenching the back door open. For a fleeting second, as I stood there holding the door, I worried that he'd pull away before I could get in and then slam on his brakes, teasing me. Anxious, I dived into the car and cringed at the noise as I closed my door a little too forcefully. I mumbled an apology and kept my eyes on the back of Alice's seat.

"You don't mind sitting in the back do you?" Alice asked in an excited voice, having spun around in her seat. The driver of the car behind us was already honking. "We just have to pick up my friend Rosalie and then we'll be good."

"That's fine," I said trying to smile. If I wasn't sitting next to Alice, it would be easier to avoid conversation. I took a deep breath and made myself look in _his _direction. Just the back of his head was enough to send another jolt of pain through my body, but I was expecting it this time. "Hello," I said, proud that there weren't any tremors in my voice. Still, my voice sounded low and hollow to me.

"Hello," _he_ exhaled, eyes on the traffic.

So easy and inconsequential. This happy greeting, like it meant nothing.

A mess of insecurity, I couldn't decide whether it would be better to avoid looking at him, or if I should take the opportunity to try and increase my tolerance by staring at his profile.

I settled for studying my hands. _Loser!_

Fortunately, Alice was oblivious, jabbering away about her new shop, telling us about a shipment of Louis Vuitton handbags she'd received that morning, speaking so quickly that I had difficulty understanding what she was saying. I nodded and smiled, pretending.

_He _didn't say a word. I forced my eyes to move in his direction. I made it as far as his hands on the steering wheel. Long and white. Fingers like snakes curling around the wheel, tensing and relaxing at odd intervals. Was he angry that I was here? Hadn't Alice told him that I was coming?

We stopped at a light and Alice paused in her monologue to pull out her cell, crying out in disappointment after reading a text. "Rosalie can't come," she pouted. "She's got the flu."

I made practiced sounds of feigned concern for a person I'd never met. Her brother's grip on the wheel relaxed slightly as he grunted. His eloquence astounded.

"We'll still have fun, won't we?" Alice asked us.

Her brother grunted again, the vice grip on the steering wheel back again.

Oh yes, we'd have fun. Masen clearly hated me, and I loathed him. And Alice was only interested in me as a sort of exotic pet. How could we not have a rip-roaring good time together?

I wondered if Rosalie actually existed, or if she'd been invented by Alice to make it sound as if they'd planned an ordinary night on the town. If Rosalie did exist, was it better for me that she wasn't coming? Or worse?

Alice continued narrating a less than riveting tale about miscolored tassels while I panicked, trying to think of suitable responses to comments like 'Can you believe they said that they'd run out of red dye?' Well, Lysistratus' allies had complained about the shortage of leather needed for dildos during the Peloponnesian War, but was that really a comparable problem?

Fortunately, Alice didn't seem to need to breathe, so I never got a chance to say anything. Masen had parked the car by the time she was done with her story. I looked out my window and was surprised to see the Space Needle. Well, they could be planning a very public humiliation for me at such a location, but the crowd would make for an easy escape. I wondered why we were here.

Climbing carefully out of the car, I was taken aback by the sight of Masen sprinting around the vehicle towards me. I staggered back a step, wary of his intentions. But he stopped by Alice's door, opening it for her. I was a few steps away from the car by the time she'd taken his hand, and I caught a glimpse of the side of his face as he grimaced towards my door.

I crossed my arms over my chest. _No, don't do this_. I forced myself to breathe slowly, in and out, and lowered my arms. _He _had no right to do this to me. Not this boy, even if he was now a man, who for years had gone nameless in my head, unworthy of consideration, like so many others who'd I'd succeeded in forgetting, all of them a nameless faceless _him_. Masen's presence in my life now was my fault—my destruction, actively sought out and goaded into action—I would be the master of my fate.

"Come on," Alice called over her shoulder. Masen was already walking away, Alice waiting for me by the front of the car. I steadied myself and caught up with her, steeling myself for the ordeal ahead, but I paused again as I watched Masen going up to the entrance of the Space Needle.

"What?" I asked dumbly. We were going to dinner, weren't we? We weren't actually going in there, were we?

Oh, yes. We were.

Edward prince of my fucking darkness Masenhad seen fit to take his newly-arrived to the city sister and her so-called dear old high school friend to the fucking Space Needle. Pinnacle of civic pride and family-oriented, old-fashioned, wholesome fun.

Really.

The incongruity of the situation would have struck me as funny were I not suspicious that it was somehow a test. _Take the Match Girl to a cigar store—that'll be a real riot._ I followed a bouncing Alice into the elevator. She really seemed to be enjoying herself, for all that Masen still hadn't spoken more than two words. So I kept my mouth shut, trying to think of something suitable to interject into Alice's monologue, ignoring Masen, wishing he hadn't purchased my ticket, but not knowing how I could have protested without speaking to him, and likewise incapable of thanking him, digging my fingernails into the palms of my hands in a desperate attempt to slow my pounding heart, and deciding that there was nothing I _could _say about the Space Needle that wasn't cutting or overly critical. It's not like it was any surprise when we got to the top and—oh look—everything down there was so small!

We stood at a window, looking down. Masen had a strangely hopeful look on his face as he gazed at the glass, while Alice oohed and ahhed over all the tiny people that she could barely see, leaving me to cluck in agreement. Maybe I could say something about her shop. But all I could think of was: _Gee, how does it feel to have mommy and daddy buy you a career? _Or _Did you hear about that model who weighs enough to actually menstruate? There's an article about her in the latest issue of __The New England Journal of Medicine_.

I checked the time. Only forty-five minutes had passed. How was I going to survive the rest of the night? Her brother was still maintaining his stoic reserve as his sister was chattered away. _In this scene, the part of the awkward third wheel well be played by: Isabella Swan. _The silence on Masen's part was truly starting to get on my nerves. I was almost tempted to say something to him, just to see him snap.

Alice pulled out her cell phone and asked another tourist to take our picture. Her brother raised a hand, trying to decline, while the words stuck in my throat. I didn't want to be in a picture. Not with them. I didn't want there to be any photographic evidence of our time together. But Alice had gotten as far as grabbing both of our arms and was pulling us to the window, when her cell chirped.

"Oh." She dropped our arms and hopped over to retrieve her phone. I looked out the window, uncomfortable with her brother's close proximity.

_Masen¸_ I said to myself. _His name is Masen_. I felt my lips moving and froze, hoping no one had noticed that I was talking to myself. I could see Masen's reflection in the window. He was standing directly behind me, studying the glass again. If he pushed hard enough, I would go right through the glass, and down.

"Sorry," Alice trilled. "It's the store. I feel like I should answer. You don't mind do you?" Like we were going to throw her cell off the roof. "Hey, it's Alice. What's wrong? What? Oh, ok. No, no problem. I'll be right there."

I took a steadying breath and pretended to be fascinated with the line of birds making their way across the sky.

Alice sighed, snapping her cell shut. "Damn! I'm so sorry, you guys. I've got to go. The alarm keeps going off and the security company says the problem isn't on their end. You don't mind do you?"

As if my preferences had any bearing. _Here's a thought, stop doing things for which you have to ask forgiveness._ I forced myself to smile as I turned around. "Of course not, Alice. You don't need any help do you?"

"No. The shop's just two blocks away. I can walk. But you two don't have to call it a night."

What? _No!_

"Alice, that's ok. I've had…fun." I sounded like a strangled duck.

"I insist. Edward will take you to do some more sightseeing and we'll get together again sometime soon."

Sometime soon? Had she set up that call so that she could get out of the rest of the night? I could see why she would want to bail on me, but I didn't see why she would want to leave me with her brother. She couldn't be that cruel, could she? All this time, I'd told myself that she didn't know what he'd done to me. That she would have sympathized with me if she'd known the truth, even if she couldn't completely turn her back on him. But this—leaving me like this—she had to know what she was doing.

I squared my shoulders, not wanting to give away that I was onto their game, trying to think of a way to extricate myself from this situation without openly acknowledging how worthless the Cullens made me feel. We rode down in the elevator, Alice describing for us all the trouble she'd had with contractors and wiring since rushing the work on her shop.

I looked at Masen out of the corner of my eye. He was pinching the bridge of his nose and scowling at the floor. I resolved to let Alice think that I was letting her have her way. It would be a cold day on the sun in the middle of a supernova with hot sauce on my tongue before I'd spend any time alone with Masen.

And fuck my fairy godmother and her ridiculous proposition.

Alice walked us to the car, promising to call me so that we could set up that get together she was so excited about, and apologizing again for abandoning us. She didn't apologize for abandoning us _to each other_.

When she was out of sight, Masen opened the door for me. I stared at the door, unsure of what to do.

"Getting in?"

I supposed I could let him drive me home. He _would_ drive me home wouldn't he? Maybe I should catch the bus.

"Sometime this century?" Masen asked, sounding bored.

I slid into the car and let him shut the door. He darted around the front of the car and climbed into the driver's seat. I cringed into the door, attempting not to be too obvious as I forced myself sit stiffly forward.

"You don't have to—" I started, trying to give him an excuse but still not looking at him. "If you don't mind taking me home, that would be just fine." _Please, please take me home._

"You don't want to spend time with me?" he asked as he back out of the space. I could hear the smirk in his voice. It was more than he'd said to me all evening.

_I'd rather spend time with a mortician who collects skullcaps. _I, in my infinite grace of being, instead opted to stutter: "I—I—only if you want to. I don't want to put you out." Why did I always have to go along with what other people wanted? Why couldn't I just tell people to fuck off and leave me alone? Why did I always have to be so fucking accommodating?

"You're not putting me out. I had this entire evening set aside for my sister and her friends."

I watched the side of his face, desperate for a sign of his true intentions. He had yet to look at me.

"Alice isn't here anymore," I replied. As if he didn't know that.

He grimaced. "Ah, but you still are." I looked out the passenger window. A beat later, he spoke again, trying to make conversation. "So, have you known Alice long?" he asked.

_What the motherfuck_?

I whirled around and gaped at him, sense memories descending on me in a pounding roar that blocked out everything else. Masen, lips curled into a sneer when he accidentally brushed against my hand as we worked together on a lab in Biology. His face laughing as I tripped on his leg in the hallway, my books flying. His hair creeping into my vision, as he leaned down to glare at me around the hood I'd pulled low lest I have to see anyone.

A sharp pain stung the back of my scalp as I recalled how he'd yank on my hair whenever he'd snatch my hood back to stop me from hiding.

A velvet snarl sounded around the roaring in my ears—God, the things he'd said. The pressure in my throat threatened to cut off my breath as I recalled what he'd paid my mother to do the one time she'd come to visit me in Forks.

And against my will, my eyes trailed back to his hands on the steering wheel.

I remembered staggering back against a wall, certain that Masen was about to hit me, and the searing fire as my head caught the brick.

A living hell with pitch and boils and pain that a person never gets used to because there's no such thing as habituation (the devil's smart like that).

For two years he'd put me through hell and he didn't remember me. He might as well have tied me to a tree and used me for target practice with his new Boy Scout _Inquisition_ crossbow set.

I snapped my mouth shut, my brief burst of irrationality giving way to a calm that would have been eerie if I wasn't so accustomed to it. There was no reason that Masen should remember me. I was as insignificant to him as a cockroach.

But I had been silent too long for polite conversation. I looked straight ahead again, certain I wouldn't be able to carry on if I had to look at him.

"We've known each other for a while," I said, unable to mask the sarcasm in my tone.

"What brings you to Seattle?" he asked next, his voice just dripping with false camaraderie. As if I either of us believed that he actually cared. Even if he didn't remember who I was, he was still Masen and I was still Swan. Blood will show.

"I go to the University of Seattle," I said, deciding not to correct his assumption about how long I'd been living in Seattle.

"That's right next to the hospital where I work."

Oh, how sweet, he was sharing too. I hesitated for only a beat. "You're a nurse?"

"Doctor." He cleared his throat. "Doctor," he repeated, apparently for fear that I'd missed it the first time.

I looked away so that he wouldn't see my small smile, my first genuine smile of the night. "That must be very fulfilling. All the people you get to help. I've heard the hospital's got a great program for working with the homeless. You must enjoy helping them."

"I'm still in my residency," he said defensively. "They don't really give residents a lot of time to work on projects like that."

"I would think that residents would be exactly the kind of people they'd want to waste on that," I fired back. I felt a brief tinge of regret, remembering my fairy godmother's advice about this evening and how she wanted me to act with Masen, but I decided not to let her opinion matter just now. "Not using up the hospital's more valuable resources," I concluded.

"I work in the ER. We're too valuable to lose—those of us in general practice, at least." There was a little more edge to his voice now. He was coming out to play.

"General practice? Couldn't make up your mind?" I taunted. I could go on mocking Masen for hours.

"I like a challenge. A constantly evolving landscape." His hands were clenching the steering wheel yet again.

"A constantly evolving landscape?" I smiled openly, my amusement at the situation distracting me so much that I actually looked at his face. His eyes were on the traffic, his face in profile. The sting of pain at seeing his features was milder this time. "So does that mean that you're very open to new techniques?"

"Of course."

I could hear the hesitancy in his voice. He couldn't possibly be feeling insecure, could he? With little old me? Either Masen was an incredible actor, or Alice's epic bail and the night's disastrous pairing was an accident after all.

"Alternative therapies," I threw out.

He shrugged his shoulders, no doubt making up his mind to be conciliatory with Alice's crazy friend, perhaps for fear of angering his sister. If only he knew how little she cared. "Sure. Why not?"

"Midwives? Sweat lodges? Crystals?" If Masen really didn't know who I was, I could say whatever I wanted. No censoring needed. I could fuck with him all night long. Or at least until he threw me out of the car.

"Yes to the first two, no to the last."

I waited for him to elaborate, and was pleased when he did so.

He explained: "There could be medical reasons to use a sweat lodge, though you could obtain better treatment in a hospital."

"Minus the soothing songs and promises of divine favor."

"Opportunity cost."

There was a moment of silence as Masen navigated the traffic.

"Why not crystals?" I inquired seriously.

"Are you serious?" Masen made a strange gurgling sound that I think was supposed to be laughter. The sound put me off. I didn't want to hear him laugh at me. I looked out the window again.

"Placebo effect's a medically proven fact," I replied petulantly. "If it makes people feel better, who cares why?"

"Do you use crystals?"

"No, but I don't go to the doctor either."

I watched pedestrians run for shelter as it started to rain.

"You don't go to the doctor?" he asked.

"Don't see the point. If I break a bone, I'll go. But otherwise, we all have to die someday. I expect to die of cancer."

"That's idiotic."

"So is waiting three weeks for a visit when the doctor spends less than ten minutes talking to you, and spends most of that time reminiscing over a recent golf game."

"If people didn't abuse the system, going to the doctor at the drop of a hat…" he trailed off.

"If the medical field wasn't so concerned with maintaining demand and securing high salaries, medical schools wouldn't be forced to limit the number of students accepted every year. And I wouldn't have trouble getting an appointment."

"And if lawsuits weren't so common that doctors couldn't afford to pay insurance, we wouldn't need such high salaries." Masen swerved around an SUV full of children.

"Right. 'Cause you're driving a clunker." I regrouped. "If doctors spent more than ten minutes with each patient, and got a full night's sleep so that they weren't killing them, they wouldn't need to pay such high insurance."

"If they didn't have to see so many patients every day just so that they could pay their insurance, they'd be able to get a full night's sleep."

"You could have gone to the Dominican Republic for med school," I retorted. "You could have soaked up some culture while you learned to slice and dice. Much lower student loans."

"Would you go to a doctor who had gotten his degree in the Dominican Republic?"

"You all have to pass the same boards."

"I'll keep that in mind when you come into my ER."

"Going to pass me off to the janitor, Masen?"

He slammed on the brakes, unnecessarily stopping to let someone pass in front of him. "My name's Cullen," he said, glancing my way but still not turning his head. There was an undercurrent of genuine anger in his voice. Damn, I'd forgotten about the name.

"Is it?" I kept my eyes on the side of his face, resisting the urge to grab onto the door handle when he accelerated at a ridiculous speed. "Sorry."

"Did Alice tell you my name was Masen?" His tone was accusatory. Was he angry at her for betraying him? Or did he suspect me of checking up on him?

"I must have misunderstood her," I prevaricated. "So where're you taking me?" I grimaced as my voice quavered. I tried to play it off as laughter. "Canada? Your criminal lair?"

Masen finally looked in my direction, a sneer on his face and a menacing growl in his voice as he answered. "Why? You afraid that I'm going to add you to my collection of corpses?"

**Fic rec: Aengus by starshinedown**

'_I'll tell you what, if you are a good girl, my little pork cuntlet, I'll buy your freedom and keep you as my concubine._' — Aristophanes

'_The anchors loose their grip. And now a billow, greater than the first, rushes upon us, fraught with perils grave, while the ship plunges deep into the wave_.' — Alcaeus


	5. Chapter 4

Stephanie Myers owns: Twilight.

I own: Nothing. I have, however, purchased a Robert Pattinson calendar to pull out whenever one of my raging heterosexual male co-worker complains that he doesn't want to do his job. We look at pretty pictures together.

My apologies, I promised some of you that I would upload on Wednesdays. It's actually Thursday.

Chapter 4: Operation Fail

"Deceit, to the point of diabolism, and originality verging upon the grotesque, were my notions of strategy; and although in matters of construction I tried to conform, whenever possible, to classical rules, such as economy of force, unity, weeding out of loose ends, I was always ready to sacrifice purity of form to the exigencies of fantastic content, causing form to bulge and burst like a sponge-bag containing a small furious devil." - Vladimir Nabakov on the construction of chess problems

EPOV

"So where're you taking me?" She asked with a shaky laugh. "Canada? Your criminal lair?"

I gave up, succumbing to temptation, and let myself glance at her.I didn't let myself look too careful. A slip of skin. A rope of brown waves. "Why? You afraid that I'm going to add you to my collection of corpses?"

She didn't miss a beat. "Just your collection of hair."

"We're going to pay our respects," I told her, cringing at my weak attempt at humor. Why was I even bothering? Alice had spent the better part of the evening chirping and giggling like a schoolgirl at her first Ice Capades. Even I could tell that her friend, whose name I'd missed, was less than enthusiastic. I couldn't help but notice her silence at my sister's unfunny jokes, the nearly inaudible scoffs at my sister's unintentional jokes, the air of disdain in the woman's voice as she sought to confirm that we were indeed going inside the Space Needle. I almost fucked up and looked at her when she asked that, certain that I'd see a monocle screwed into one of her eyes as she knocked the ashes from a cigarette in a long-stemmed holder. Bitch.

I had stopped myself just in time. I couldn't want to fuck what I couldn't see, could I?

I thought the Space Needle would be sweet. An homage to Alice's childlike spirit. Most importantly, it was _innocent_. A way to show my commitment to the kind of lifestyle that wouldn't cause my family any shame.

Why couldn't Alice's friend be dimwitted? Or, if she had to be clever, why couldn't she be one of those optimistic hippy creatures-who hates doctors, don't forget-who watches crappy indie movies and enjoys observing "the masses at play" like an anthropologist observing the natives?

She was smart enough to think that Alice was an idiot but stupid enough to be friends with her. She was smart enough not to be impressed that I could repair a bullet wound, but not smart enough to be worried that I could remove one of her kidneys and leave her none the wiser…Wasn't a contradiction like this akin to someone going back in time and meeting their father before they were born? Shouldn't physicists be running around trying to repair the new hole in the space-time continuum?

Then the gods and the devils who conspire to make me their plaything set off the alarms in Alice's new shop.

Oh sure, I would show Alice's friend a good time. I could do this. I could behave normally for one night, and come up with something to talk about other than my latest suicide plan. Never mind that my most lasting conversations with women of late-except for the women to whom I was related or with whom I worked-concerned how hard I would fuck them and how many times. Not really a great deal of conversation required for that thanks to Breaking Dawn.

Needless to say, when faced with the challenges of conversing with a normal human female-not one of the fucked up bitches from Breaking Dawn-I floundered.

The silence in the car had probably gone long past the point where it was uncomfortable, but I didn't see why I had to take all the responsibility for that.

But I also realized that we'd arrived at the next stop on this little tour through my own personal hell. So I slammed on the brakes to steal a parking space that had only just then opened up along the street

"We're stopping here?" the she-demon asked, quite stupidly it seemed, since I'd already thrown the car in park.

"We're here," I confirmed, flying out of the car and hurrying around the front so that I could pay her the courtesy of opening her door, only to find that she was faster than me again. Disdainful bitch. At least I was trying. I could have ditched her when Alice had bailed. The she-demon could at least try to get along.

"All those homeless people I'm too privileged to help out with free health care," I explained, opening an umbrella as I waited for her to close the door. "I pay them off with offerings of nubile flesh every two weeks."

"Has it been two weeks?" she asked, jumping when she turned and saw me waiting so close at hand.

"How clever you are," I observed, and turned, not waiting to see if she followed. She could find her own goddamned umbrella.

It wasn't fair. I was really trying here, and it's not like it was easy. I had work and Breaking Dawn and a family that didn't speak to me. How was I supposed to make idle chitchat with someone I'd never met before?

My plan? Be witty and charming and funny. But I'd never once been witty or charming or funny, I'd just stood there and let women throw themselves at me. Not that I could sleep with one of Alice's friends-not again-because _sleep_ was too kind a euphemism for what I did with women. And so here I was, avoiding so much as a glance in the she-demon's direction for fear that I'd be lost, the terror rooted so deeply within me that you'd think the she-demon was going to steal my soul through my eyes. As if she was the one who was the monster, when really she was the one who needed protection.

"So, aside from occasional sacrifices, what else is there to do for fun in Seattle?" I heard the she-demon/victim ask a pace behind me.

That's right, she was new to the city. Too fucking new to be so goddamned judgmental on my skills as an amateur tour guide, and yet that hardly stopped her. "You say that as if you don't think Seattle has very much to offer."

"I don't know—the Space Needle is just so awesome I don't know how I'll ever get over the excitement."

Bitch. I didn't break my stride, still a few steps in front of her, the path winding under the bridge. "I'll try to make the rest of the night more interesting," I promised.

"And ruin what could otherwise be a streak?"

"Alice liked it," I snapped back

"Alice has…unique tastes."

"What was wrong with the Space Needle?" Motherfuckers came from all over the goddamned world to see that thing, and she couldn't at least pretend to be impressed?

"Something like that is either so lame it's cool or too lame to be worth considering. It's a fine line."

Was she really trying to intellectualize her encounters with mass culture? Stupid hole in the space-time continuum. I held by breath as we reached our destination, hoping this would go better than the Space Needle. Only I would think that taking a woman sightseeing under a bridge was a good idea. What the fuck ever.

"What about this then?" I gestured towards the massive troll hunkering under the bridge, a grotesque sculpture that always came up in the visitors' guides to Seattle.

"Hmm," she considered, her eyes narrowing.

Dear God, please let the stupid Volkswagen troll shut the she-demon up. I silently thanked him, glad that we had him to ourselves, the rain having chased the other visitors away in the twilight. Heaven forbid the she-demon should be put off again by the presence of other tourists.

"Ask a question," I encouraged, returning my eyes to the troll.

"Ask a question?" she repeated, like my instructions were too complicated for a person of her meager intellect.

"The troll will answer you," I said slowly, as if I was talking to a child.

I saw her shake her head in my periphery. "That's ok."

"You eschew medical science but you turn your nose up to a bridge troll?" I mocked, looking anywhere but at her. "You're very inconsistent."

"It's a thing I do."

"I'll ask a question for you." I paused for effect, gazing up at the troll. "What should I ask? Oh yes—Troll, has my sister's friend been a good girl tonight?"

She waited, not saying anything.

I clicked my tongue. "He says you've been naughty. Doesn't think you're giving Seattle its due." It was my turn to fuck with her.

"I think the city will survive," she replied dryly.

"There are over half a million residents. With that many constituents, you can imagine that the troll takes his job very seriously."

I turned to lead the way back to the car.

"Did you know that the first revolving restaurant opened in Seattle in 1961?" I asked, resorting to the fact sheet that I'd memorized in preparation for the evening.

I could pretend to be normal. Even if she couldn't.

BPOV

"They know how to break all the girls like you. / And they know how to rob the souls of the girls like you. / And they break the hearts of the girls. / Swing low cherry cherry, yeah it's awful. / He's drunk. He tastes like candy, yeah, he's beautiful….They sell it out to the girls like you. / To incorporate the girls like you."

Hole "Awful"

It was a test. I was sure of it. He was fucking with me just to see how long it would take for me to break.

First there was that nonsense of pretending not to remember who I was. Then there was the tour through Seattle's lamest and strangest.

But if he didn't remember me, why all the effort to avoid looking at me? Unless I was somehow just as repugnant to him despite the apparent gap in his memory, his sixth sense telling him that there was something odious about me even if he couldn't figure out just what it was.

And now? Now, I was being serenaded with a litany of weird facts to forget and ignore about the dear city I'd come to know and love. Who the fuck gives a shit when Seattle's first revolving restaurant opened? And why would someone want to eat in a revolving restaurant in the first place? Doesn't it kind of contradict the whole point of swallowing your food if you're just going to vomit before you're done eating?

That settled it. Clearly, Masen _did _remember me from high school. And, remembering me to be a nerd of unparalleled proportions, no doubt he meant me to respond to his lame-ass commentary with the birth date and eye color of Seattle's first mayor. "No. I didn't know that," I said instead, not knowing anything about the first mayor.

"Washington also produces more apples than any other state and has more glaciers than 47 other states combined," he continued.

He proceeded to rattle off additional useless facts about the state as he led the way back up to his Volvo. You would think he'd memorized a list. Perhaps he'd somehow devolved in the years since high school.

Or was his ridiculous behavior a way of telling me that he didn't think that I deserved any better?

Confused, I clutched at a handrail without thinking, grimacing at the unpleasant mix of rainwater and human residue under my fingers.

"Where to now?" I inquired, trying to stem the weird tide of trivia as we reached the car. Masen opened my door for me. I glared at his hand on the handle. He could act like Percival _cum _Grail and I wouldn't give a fuck. I knew the real Masen.

Biting my tongue, I slid into the seat, taking out a hand wipe.

"It's a surprise," he said with a smirk, closing my door.

Shit. I was screwed.

Sighing, I looked out the window at the rain. I could have spent the evening watching the Criterion Collection's _Yojimbo_. Or reading Petronius. Or checking the Uncyclopedia for updates to the Bruce Campbell entry. Instead, I was here. With _him_. It was all very beneath me.

I turned to Masen. "Give me a hint?" I asked.

Yes, give me a hint so that I know whether or not to throw myself out of the car into uncoming traffic.

"Ever heard of delayed gratification?" he inquired.

_I hate my life. _

"Delayed gratification makes sense when you're a kid and can't afford to buy yourself that Barbie Dream Car. It ceases to hold value as you age." Seneca would be so disappointed in me.

Masen's lips twitched, sliding into a crooked smile. "Delayed gratification can be immensely satisfying. Perhaps you're not practicing it correctly."

'_O great goddess Bamboozle!'_

We drove in silence for another half an hour, the evening traffic delaying what should have otherwise been a five minute trip.

Masen parked in a garage, using the childproof lock this time so that I couldn't open my door until he came around and opened it for me. Asshole. Then, because apparently the Fremont Troll under the bridge really was angry at me for disdaining to ask him a question, I proceeded to trip over thin air as I tried to get out of the car.

In the disaster that ensued, several things happened in quick succession: I crashed into Masen—the last person whom I should ever care to encounter in this manner-Masen's left arm snaked around my waist, I froze, the heat of Masen's hand burned through the thin shirt I was wearing, I jerked away, the top of my head knocked into Masen's chin, I shoved against his chest, I fell back towards the car, Masen followed behind me still latched onto me by one arm, and Masen's other arm—which had been resting on the car door—pulled that door closed behind him. My shoulder hit the car, Masen slammed into me, and the car door closed on us like a vice.

I stood immobile, red heat lancing through my shoulder and my eyes on Masen's chest, against which my hands were still pressed. I could feel warmth of his skin through his shirt. I pulled my hands back, cringing away from the contact even if I was merely trying to push him away.

Masen took a measured breath before speaking, leaning into me still, lest any effort on his part offer me some relief. "I've noticed," he said, his voice raspy and low, "that you have yet to thank me for opening your door tonight."

"I won't thank you for something that I wish you wouldn't do," I struggled to keep my voice even.

"I am only being a gentleman."

"A true gentleman would accede to a woman's wishes." I refused to raise my head, concentrating on the fiery coil of his arm around my waist to keep me grounded in the present.

"Even when it is against her better interests?"

"You know nothing of my interests. And very little of being a gentleman."

"I hardly think you're a judge of that."

"Would a gentleman keep me in such an uncomfortable position?" I willed myself not to struggle, lest doing so cause me to be drawn further into the snake's maw. Laocoon indeed.

Masen slid no more than an inch away. I remained against the car despite the discomfort, treasuring the distance.

"Since you have such a low opinion of me," Masen concluded, "the only way to convince you of your mistaken belief is to continue to antagonize you by opening doors."

"I have little patience for pretense."

"It isn't pretense if I'm truly a gentleman."

"I should think that you would appreciate a break from your performing schedule."

"Am I performing now?"

I looked him in the eye at that. '_Let me suffer what I must suffer._' "We are always performing. We never stop."

"Then why not let me perform the role of my choosing?"

"Because you do so poorly."

His eyes narrowed. "What did my sister tell you about me?"

"She didn't tell me that you would drive me to an unfamiliar garage, trap me against a car, and refuse to let me get away."

Before he could reply, a Mercedes swung up behind us. Masen stood back, dropping his arm from my waist. I stepped quickly away.

"I am sorry for falling on you," I heard myself murmur.

"And I am sorry for trapping you against a car and not letting you get away."

I rubbed my shoulder.

"Are you alright?" His voice was still low.

"I'm fine."

"I've shown you such a poor performance, I hope you will be impressed by what's to come."

"I'm sure it will be ok," I responded, wincing when I realized that I was trying to console him.

He bent low at the waist, waving his hand in a strange little flourish towards the exit of the garage. So I turned and led the way out, pausing at the sidewalk to let him catch up. We walked in silence again, going no more than two or three blocks before we reached the tail end of a line of people curling down the street. I followed Masen to the front of the line, watching with confusion as he smiled at the bouncer, who let us through an unmarked door with a nod.

Thus, a mere two hours after Alice abandoned me to my fate, I found myself sipping a badly made overpriced drink, sitting next to Masen in a club. Oh, excuse me, a _lounge_.

It must have been popular, given the line waiting outside. Nevertheless, I found it cheap. Gaudier even than that fairytale cave of anxiety-laden debauchery where I'd met my fairy godmother and agreed to offer myself up to such foolish pursuits.

Lights flashed in varying hues of purple, annoying me, and the music was too loud to let anyone carry on a conversation without shouting.

People were taking advantage of the noise by attempting to dance, but there wasn't enough space for that, so they gesticulated and pulsed in a veritable sea of flesh. A Hieronymous Bosch painting, maybe.

I noticed that Masen was screaming at me and I leaned closer to hear. _Closer to Masen._

"Do you want another drink?" I could feel his breath on my cheek. I forced myself not to shudder.

I shook my head no. "I don't really drink," I screamed. "This isn't my–"

He wasn't listening. I watched him glance around the club.

"Are you looking for someone?" I asked. _Or looking to make sure that no one sees me with you?_

He spun around and grinned in my direction. "Just checking on the action."

_Just checking on the action?_

The action.

Checking on it.

What strange alternate universe had I stepped into? Was someone going to ask me to put on a poodle skirt and sing the theme to _Happy Days_?

I looked around carefully. "Action?"

"You know—what's happening, who's here, and who's who. Besides you and me, of course."

My eyes may have bugged out of my skull a little. This was not the Edward Masen I knew. This wasn't the Edward Masen with whom I'd attended high school. The man who'd just pressed me up against a car and offered veiled threats.

"I guess it's just you and me," I started to reply. "I don't—" but he was standing before I could finish.

"There's someone I have to say hi to, you'll be ok won't you?"

And he was gone.

I looked around. The walls were covered in mirrors, magnifying and distorting the drunken revelry. I watched Masen in the mirror, his figure moving through the crowd. Had he really seen someone he knew or did he just want to get away? At least both he and Alice had been kind enough to apologize before abandoning me.

I looked at my face in the mirror, trying to school my features into an expression that didn't scream _What the hell am I doing here?_

I could do nothing to stifle the air of boredom. Depression.

I found Masen in the mirror again. He was talking to an attractive couple who were leaning up against the far wall. They seemed pleased to see him.

It gave me reason to pause. Seeing him here, a club where he was important enough to get inside without waiting, where he was clearly well-liked, only reminded me that I was the one who was the freak, not Masen. If there was something wrong with the way our evening had gone, it was because of me, not him.

_Of course_, I told myself, _he could have bribed them all with daddy's money_. I scoffed at the bitterness of my thoughts. Not that these people looked like they were hard to impress, all of them laughing a little too much, swaying with no concern for how they might appear to an outsider, half of them Masen's age, obviously trying to hold onto their youth, and the other half just barely old enough to drink, trying to look older, desperate to appear sophisticated. I might have laughed had there been anyone around to laugh with me.

"Hey, baby." A man fell against my stool. I stiffened, glad that I'd finished my drink so that I wouldn't be tempted to throw it in anyone's face. "Wanna dance?"

I refused as politely as I could, mentioning an imaginary boyfriend-ha! boyfriend-who would be returning from the bar posthaste, and my admirer faded back into the sea.

How could anyone be under the delusion that a place like this was in the least bit entertaining? Gyrating against someone you'd just met and contemplating the infinite vapidity of modern discourse?

Twenty minutes later, Masen was still over by the bar, two more men had made drunken overtures, and I'd promised myself that the next person to do so was going to be invited to sit down and endure an inquisition on the search for meaning in the face of the meaningless.

This wasn't happening. Someone must have hit _Continue_ after my fairy godmother left my side, and now here I was, visiting a troll and attending the ball with Prince Charming by my side.

The incongruity of picturing Masen as my Prince Charming was not lost on me.

What a stupid fiction anyhow, too pretty and kind for the likes of me. If this _was_ a fairytale, I certainly wasn't the princess in the tower.

I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes narrowing until the outlines of my face blurred, a Medusa glaring back at me, ropelike hair twisting squirming and struggling against the pale slash of my mouth, a few stray locks meeting up with and trailing away into blue veins that ran down my neck.

I glanced over my shoulder at Masen. My destruction. He was grinning at the couple from before. The lot of them could have been models.

I felt a surge of hatred course through me. _Edward Masen, I will end you_.

He suddenly threw his head back and laughed.

Who was I kidding? I had no more power now than I'd had in high school. I could still remember the sound of Masen snickering, the laughter in his voice when he asked why I bothered wearing a bra at all given the absence of anything requiring support.

I twisted my napkin in my fingers. I was probably supposed to feel grateful just for being allowed inside a club like this.

By this point, Masen had moved onto a strawberry blonde, and was deeply immersed in a conversation that he must have been conducting at the top of his lungs given the pounding music. Yeah, 'cause that's how you go about making a true connection.

I sighed, growing more and more certain that the entire evening had been a practical joke: Alice bailing, Masen pretending not to remember who I was, taking me to see that ridiculous troll and then abandoning me in a club where I was so out of my element that the bartender was probably cringing in sympathy for me.

Standing up, I went up the bar and ordered a shot of tequila and a Bellini. Writing a note on the back of a napkin, I asked a waiter to give it Masen along with the tequila. Then, draining my Bellini in a long swallow, I turned and left. It only took me two buses and a short sprint through the rain to reach home.

Operation: Fail.

**AN:**

'O great goddess Bamboozle!' - Aristophanes

'Let me suffer what I must suffer.' - Sophocles


	6. Chapter 5

I daydream about being fired so that I'll have more time for Twilight and cyber-stalking a certain Brit. If I owned Twilight, those wouldn't be called daydreams.

CHAPTER 5 – I Took Her Home

"You made a habit of / Fucking up my life. / …Now I just don't know / What to believe / Another animal / Sent to devour whatever's left inside / …How come I wasn't able to see / Another vampire / Getting their fix from / Sucking up my life / An evil entity / Had taken hold of me / Ripped out my heart and started to feed / I still remember when / I thought that all you were / Eating was my blood / …It's all been a lie / I don't ever want to know why / You've mastered the art of / Deceiving me now."

Disturbed "Deceiver"

EPOV

Despite everything, I successfully avoided looking her full in the face until the accident in the garage, when I saw pain flash across her features as I stumbled against her. Just as quickly, she schooled her face into a mask and my breath caught in my throat.

She wasn't particularly beautiful, or unattractive either. She just…_was_, her head turned stiffly to the side, as though held in traces, her iron resolve keeping her in place. She was intractable, her skin white and unmarked, like milk glass, her lips a soft pink against that fountain of hair.

As the seconds passed and neither of us stirred, I wondered if she was frozen in place. The opposite of Pygmalion's statue–touch her and she will turn to stone. My mind stuttered at the loss that would entail. And still she would not move, perfect in her control. I was half-tempted to force her chin up, just to see if she could be forced to move, just so that I could enjoy the sight of her face without the shroud of hair.

But she hadn't asked for this pain; she wasn't a willing participant in this.

I stepped back, giving her some space, not wanting to goad her further. She remained where she was, not taking advantage of the added space, frozen as far away from me as possible.

And the things she said—as if she knew me somehow. Knew the truth of who I was. What could she possibly know?

I couldn't believe that Alice would have told her anything too damning. That would be—no better than I deserved, but nonetheless unpleasant. I didn't want to believe Alice had betrayed me like that.

So I stood in that garage, my quarry trapped against the car, and I tried to understand what was happening.

Now that I could see her face more clearly, she did look vaguely familiar. Had I seen her at Breaking Dawn? If so, that would explain her strange claims to privileged knowledge, but not the use of the name Masen. And if she was a patron of Breaking Dawn, she was just as guilty as I of…certain tendencies.

But what if she was a one-time patron?

That had always been my fear. That a first time visitor with no real taste for the club's amenities would later recognize me.

My behavior there was always discreet, at least until I was locked behind a secure door with other seasoned patrons. I told myself that this woman could have no more than a suspicion, no matter what she'd seen before I was behind that locked door.

Loathe to confirm any damning suspicions on her part, I steeped back finally, allowing her passage.

Trying to collect myself, I led the way to the lounge. I was sure that this place would impress her, for all that the Space Needle and the Fremont Troll had apparently left her wanting. The lounge was popular enough, surely, for the likes of her. But she seemed somehow even more disgruntled as we waited for our drinks in silence.

I felt a flare of anger. Who did she think she was? Too sophisticated for the trendiest club in Seattle? Given her friendship with Alice, she could be a model. The purple bruises under her eyes suggested coke-addled parties. I chanced a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. She seemed fairly plain. If she wasn't a model, what was the point in being that thin? She was a model then—the fashion industry didn't really have the most logical grading criteria. I snorted, remembering the handful of bones I'd felt when I'd grabbed her waist, her ribs pressing through her thin shirt. No wonder she was so bitter. She was fucking hungry.

And if I couldn't even carry on a half-intelligent conversation with a brain dead model who believed in the healing power of crystals, then what good was I to anyone?

Our drinks came and I studied my glass.

And her ridiculous attire! I hazarded another glance in her direction. Who'd go sightseeing in that?

It wasn't that the outfit was particularly revealing. There wasn't so much as a flash of leg under her skirt thanks to the boots. No, it was simply impractical. And…suspicious. As if she'd no intention of spending the evening traipsing across town.

Alice's disappearance was convenient too, wasn't it? If I didn't know better, I would think it was a set up.

I swallowed the last of my drink, considering the she-demon's behavior thus far. She certainly didn't act like she enjoyed a particularly close friendship with Alice. And if she was merely Alice's friend, why the hostility? She was far too cold, too uncomfortable in my company. I couldn't possibly have offended her so greatly in so short a time, could I?

I wished she would come out with it already. How hard was it really? Just tell me the truth about this evening and let us go our separate ways. I hadn't fucked up yet. Aside from that mishap at the car. I squeezed the empty glass, imagining how she might go about recounting that little tidbit for Alice's ears.

Fuck. Alice must have designed this evening as a test to see if I deserved to be let back into the fold. And I'd already failed.

Gritting my teeth, I glanced at the creature who'd been so unfairly set upon me. She sat quietly, her posture emanating cool disdain as she surveyed the room, cocking an eyebrow at the merriment. Where had Alice found her? An escort company? Maybe she was a prostitute hired for the night just to see if I'd take the bait.

If so, I might as well get Alice's money's worth.

Smirking, I leaned towards her, planning to embrace my ruin, as it were. I was brought up short by the appearance of a pink stain across the she-demon's cheeks. A rose dusting on porcelain. I tore my eyes from the sight and looked over my shoulder to see what had caused the blush.

The she-demon had been watching a couple kiss. So not a prostitute after all.

I briefly allowed myself the fantasy of testing the issue, sliding my fingers through her tresses as I whispered into her ear.

I swallowed hard, scanning the room desperately as I heard myself start to babble. I couldn't help it.

'_I have never been truly accustomed to civil society.'_

I stood up.

I had to get away from her.

By the time Tanya found me, I'd spent a good fifteen minutes feigning a firm friendship with two people I'd never met before.

I heard a Russian accent lilting in my ear and spun to find Tanya there, smiling at me. "Edward, oh it is so _good _to see you," she breathed.

I relaxed. Thank God.

Tanya could come back and talk to Alice's friend. No doubt they could discuss the joy of sticking their fingers down their throats, for Tanya was a model too. There must be trade secrets for avoiding habituation to the sensation of fingers striking the back of one's throat.

I laughed maniacally, thinking unchivalrous thoughts of other things that might strike the back of the she-demon's throat.

Shaking my head to dispel such notions, I grabbed Tanya's arm and gestured back to the table where Alice's friend was still waiting, surely eyeing the other patrons with a critical eye.

"There's someone I want you to meet."

Tanya laughed. "Of course." She stepped into my body and pressed herself against me, her hand trailing towards my pants. "I am so eager to meet _him_."

I pulled her hand away, knowing all too well that _those_ kinds of encounters had left far to many _friends_ of hers in need of medical attention.

"No, _her_. Do you see her? Over at that table, alone? The one in the black. She's my sister's friend."

Tanya scanned the crowd and narrowed her eyes at the sight of my evening's disaster. "Edward, she is positively…_delicious_." Tanya was purring.

I looked at the _"delicious_" creature in confusion. She was glaring at a young woman who looked like she was trying to scale a man's torso.

"You don't see it?" Tanya asked. "She is an innocent, no? _Is she for us?"_

The she-demon an innocent? I couldn't help but laugh-I'd hoped Tanya would inject some normalcy into the evening and here she was threatening to ruin everything.

I could just see it. Alice's friend fleeing in a darkened garage as Tanya and I reached out for her, flesh turning to stone as some god took pity and saved her from our depravations. An image of Bernini's _Apollo and Daphne _flashed behind my eyes.

"Tanya, I'll introduce you but you have to promise to help me out. I'm barely maintaining my grip here."

Tanya pouted. "You never let me have any fun."

"Excuse me, sir?" A waiter was offering me a drink.

"I didn't order this."

"The lady did. And she gave me this." The waiter handed me a napkin.

_'Thank you for the evening.'_

I glanced up and saw the she-demon exiting through a throng of people at the door.

'_Thank you for the evening.'_ That was it. No farewell. No apology. Just a _Fuck you very much_ and _Be on your way already_.

'_…it is a strange feeling to go about with people who think of nothing but enjoying themselves…They run all day backward and forward in a paradise, without looking about them; and if the neighboring jaws of hell begin to open and to rage, they have recourse to St. Januarius.'_

I was going to happy hour.

Edward Cullen did not go to happy hour. He had, only once, gone to a so-called "happy hour" and swore never to do so again, as there seemed nothing particularly "happy" about either the hour or the morose imposition of glee in a public setting.

Yet here I was, striding into Newton's at that dismal hour when all good boys and girls were getting their drink on.

All so that I could find out my test results.

An ethical physician would have just called me with the numbers of my cell count, but Alice wanted to tell me in person whether or not the torture from the other night had earned me a pass back into the family fold.

Ostensibly, I was coming to meet Rosalie, Emmett's girlfriend. Emmett would be there as well, which made sense. Except that my brother and I had lived in the same city for four years and had never once met for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or "I just fucked your girlfriend" coffee. Alice, being oblivious to this, waved at me as I came through the door.

Shit. At least, I supposed this meant that I'd passed the test.

Newton's was right next to my hospital, which would have been convenient except that this meant that it was also right next to the university, and consequently filled to the bursting with students all too eager to purchase bad drinks at low prices.

I worked my way through the crowd, trying not to bristle at the bunch who fell into me as they argued over the merits of dollar drafts versus mixed drinks.

Making it to my family's table, I forced myself to smile. "Alice," I said warmly. "Emmett," this less warmly.

"Brother," Emmett greeted me stiffly, perhaps hoping to remind himself why he was allowing me to join them.

"Edward," Alice began far too merrily, "this is Rosalie."

"My girlfriend," Emmett added quickly, lest I should forget what happened the last time I'd ignored this sort of information.

I nodded, tipping my head in the blonde's direction. She was fucking gorgeous, but that was neither here nor there so far as I was concerned.

"Hello," a voice sounded next to me. I turned and froze in place. It was the she-demon, back again. Was she some sort of penance? Did familial affection now come with the price of enduring the company of hell-beasts?

She was sipping her drink through a straw, like a fucking kid..

"I forgot to say before, I like your outfit," Alice complimented her.

She blushed, glancing down at herself. She was wearing a blue scallop top that exposed her collarbones. My eyes trailed along her exposed neck, her hair wound up onto the top of her head in a bun. Were those glasses on top of her head? She looked like a fucking librarian. A quiet, mousy little librarian who liked to scream your name when she came.

"Ten bucks, shirt and pants together," she said, innocent as apple pie. "At a thrift shop. Thanks."

Alice wrinkled her nose in confusion. Vintage, my sister understood. Thrift she did not.

"Chicken wings?" Emmett offered.

The mystery woman and I both declined. "Vegetarian," she explained, but as she was probably bulimic, I didn't see why she couldn't have at least one.

I winced as music began playing from behind the bar.

"I swear to God, if they play another goddamn Britney Spears song I'm going to put a bullet in my head," Rosalie announced, standing up.

"Baby, you know you like this" Emmett smiled at her. "Doesn't it make you feel empowered?"

She pinched his shoulder. "Just for that you get to come listen to me explain the finer points of quality bubblegum pop."

A second later, Rosalie and Emmett were swallowed up by the crowd, and Alice grinned at the mystery woman and I. Bracing for attack, I hoped in vain for the appearance of a waitress.

_Courage man!_

I felt myself visibly relax when Alice's cell went off.

"Uggh!" Alice cried in protest, snatching the cell off the table. "I can't get a goddamn hour to myself. I'll be right back," she called over her shoulder as she headed for the door. I wondered what the emergency was this time. Which scarf should the androgynous mannequin wear this evening? Teal or salmon?

Giving up on the waitress, I poured myself a beer from one of the two pitchers, and turned my eyes on the she-demon. She was running a finger over the whorls in the table. What, bored already?

"You left," I accused her, taking a long draught. I was still more than a little put out by the forty-five minutes it had taken me to extract myself from Tanya's talons after I was abandoned.

The she-demon glanced at me under hooded eyes. "You seem preoccupied. I didn't want to bother you."

"It's customary for companions of an evening to bid each other farewell when they part company," I corrected her, finding security in my knowledge of the social conventions, even if I so rarely followed them.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Funny, I thought I was sitting alone in a dull nightclub surrounded by no one but strangers."

"It's a matter of civility." I reiterated. I shook my head. Christ, if people like Alice were going to insist that I follow these rules than other people should have to follow them too.

"What do you know of civility, Masen?"

Again with the Masen. Who the hell was this woman? "Do we know each other?" I asked pointblank. "I mean, did we meet before the other night?"

She grimaced. "Really? You don't remember?" She chuckled nervously. "I want to believe you're playing with me. But I can't imagine why you'd bother."

"I'm sorry. I don't remember who you are."

Her pseudo-grin fell. "Don't say sorry to me, Masen. I don't want your apologies."

Who the fuck was she already?

She was frowning, watching me. I opened my mouth to say…something. But what could I possibly say to make this right?

Taking pity on me, she relented at last. "You slept with my mother."

I didn't understand. Her mother? If her mother frequented Breaking Dawn, that was hardly any of her business. Her mother was surely a consenting adult.

When I didn't seem to understand, she went on, studying the wood again. "My apologies for the euphemism. You paid her to give you a blow job. When we were in high school."

My mouth fell open. What was she saying?

"My mother had taken the bus to see me for Christmas," she went on in a quiet voice. "At least, that's why I thought she was coming. Turned out, she just wanted to hit my father up for money. Thank God I got rid of her before she saw him. Wasn't fast enough to avoid you though."

My mouth snapped shut.

"Beast." I breathed the name. My worst nightmare brought to life. She was sitting right in front of me. We'd spent an entire evening together. I'd wrapped my arm around her waist and inhaled her scent.

"At your service," she grimaced again, her eyes never once lifting from the table.

I gaped at her. What the hell was wrong with her? How could she be sitting there so calmly? She should be screaming. She should be calling for help. Dialing the police.

All those things that she should have done ten years ago in Port Angeles.

Naturally, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett chose just this moment to rejoin us.

"What's up buttercups?" Alice asked, laughing at her own joke.

"Who died?" Emmett boomed, taking in my unhappy visage.

"God and morality, but I won't tell if you don't," Beast-Swan-replied with a smirk.

I shook my head. No, this couldn't be happening.

"Don't you have any sense of self-preservation?" I hissed at her.

She laughed. She fucking laughed, looking at me now. "You're not the worse monster I've ever seen."

"No, I suppose you see one that's much worse every time you look in the mirror," I snapped back, ignoring Alice's gasp. It was easy to fall into that old mocking tone.

"Edward!" Alice chided, but not before I noticed Swan flinch, her eyes dropping. So she still had some of her old weaknesses. Not so brave after all.

She recovered quickly. "Masen and I were just getting reacquainted. Can you believe that he didn't know who I was the other night? Isn't that amusing?"

"Alice didn't tell me your name," I clarified. "Besides, you used to be a smart girl. I'd never imagine that you'd be so stupid as to turn up like this."

"Turn up where?" She turned her wide eyes on me and this time I was the one looking away. "In this bar? In your life? Or am I banned from Alice's life as well?"

"I can have whoever I want as my friend," Alice interrupted.

I glared at Alice. This was her fault. How could she be so foolish as to think this would be a good idea?

"Haven't you gotten over all that, Edward?" my sister huffed. "It was high school."

"What? Do you guys hate each other or something?" Rosalie asked, raising an eyebrow.

Emmett whistled under his breath. "Hate is too kind a word."

Beast—Swan—shrugged. "What's done is done."

"Bullshit. What's your game?" I demanded. "Is this some kind of punishment? Do you think you can just come waltzing back into my life and get revenge?"

"What are you twelve?" She looked truly shocked. "Believe it or not, my world does not revolve around you, Edward Masen. I'm not here to _punish _you. I'm not your crack addict mother doling out beatings every time you wet the bed."

I wasn't surprised that she'd go there, but Alice was clearly taken aback. At least my sister was seeing what her friend was really like for once. I wasn't completely to blame for everything that had happened.

"Are you done?" I asked. "Don't you have a Take Back the Night rally to get to?"

"Actually," Rosalie interjected, "I've been to several Take Back the Night rallies. I think it's very interesting that you'd actually mock them."

"Edward, could at least _try_ not to antagonize my friends?" Alice pleaded.

I crossed my arms. "I was here first. I'm your brother. A Cullen. The Beast can leave."

"The Beast?" Rosalie sounded confused.

I nodded towards the she-demon on the other side of the table.

"It's my nickname," Swan explained with another fucking smile. Like she was proud or something. "Like Belle, only not. Isn't that right, Masen?"

I didn't respond.

"Why do you call _him_ Masen?" Rosalie followed up, clearly more intrigued than offended by the night's developments.

"It's his name."

I snapped. "My _name_ is Cullen."

"You'll always be Masen to me," Swan retorted. "You can dress a whore in white and send her to church, but she's still a whore."

I smirked. "And you would know so much more about that than anyone else here."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alice put her head in her hands.

"Less than you'd think," Swan replied. "Yet we all pale in comparison to you, don't we?"

"Especially you. I can't imagine you ever found someone willing to touch you."

"Christ, Edward, what the hell is wrong with you?" Emmett asked.

Swan just went right on, looking me dead in the eye now. Who did she think she was fooling with this show of strength? "As I said, I know less about whores than you'd think." There was a moment of silence before she glanced at my sister and started to stand. "Alice, I'm sorry. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I'll go."

"No!" Alice shouted, dropping her hands. "You were my best friend in high school and Edward's my brother. There's no reason why he can't be nice to you. Edward, shut the fuck up already!"

I clenched my jaw.

Swan sat back down, biting her lip. _Biting her lip_. We might have been in high school again for all that she'd changed. Why hadn't I seen it earlier? Hair in her face and pouring down her back, tendrils snaking out like they wanted to snap you up. That same white skin-in a town where everyone else was going to tanning salons twice a week. She'd probably sparkle in the sunlight if it ever managed to stop raining.

Silence settled over the table. They were probably blaming that on me too. I ought to have devised a diversion to follow up my charitable efforts in trying to rid us of some misshapen sycophant. Ha! They should have been thanking me.

At least Swan seemed to have realized her faux-pas in appearing tonight. She was back to tracing whorls in the tabletop.

I saw her take a deep breath and I braced myself for another assault.

"So, Emmett," she started, "I hear you're a sports writer now."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Uhh, that's right," Emmett floundered. "Do you know my work?"

She smiled weakly at him. "The only sport I know anything about is _Ninja Warrior_."

Emmett laughed. "Is that a sport?"

"How is it not?" Swan asked. "I would like to see you do the Devil's Handbars."

"Why do you question my prowess? You know I kick ninja ass."

Rosalie snickered.

"Whatever," Swan snorted. "You'd have to make it pass Round 1 first."

"So what are you? A Kunoichi Warrior?"

"Emmett, I didn't go away to college and suddenly become graceful."

"I don't know. It kind of looked like you were tap-dancing all over Edward's ass a minute ago."

Alice glared at me. Well, she would just have to open up her mouth and tell me to leave. I was her damn brother, after all. She ought to be on my side.

_But no_, I remembered, _Alice _shouldn't _be on my side and she _wouldn't_ be on my side if she ever found out about that night in Port Angeles_.

I sat back in my chair. Perhaps that was why Swan had reinserted herself in my life. To ruin me by telling my family everything.

But why now? Was this part of some twelve step program for social outcasts?

Maybe Swan was planning to kill herself. Vengeance on me could be part of her bucket list.

She was just the kind of person who'd want to ruin everyone else's life before she took the final plunge. And I was pretty much an expert on suicidal tendencies.

I sat there pondering these and other questions as an uncomfortable silence settled over us once again. Awesome. So what the fuck were we supposed to do now? I clenched my fists in anticipation. Where was the goddamn waitress?

I was just about ready for Swan to take out a gun and start shooting, when instead, for no discernible reason, she burst out laughing.

Rosalie chuckled.

Alice smiled.

Emmett guffawed.

Swan fucking giggled.

"This isn't fucking funny," I snarled.

Her eyes snapped to mine, and they were shining. She was out of her freaking mind. "It's kind of funny, Masen. Oh relax. It's not the end of the world."

"Just get it over with," I demanded.

She frowned. "Get what over with?"

"You're going to tell them, aren't you? About your mother and…and Port Angeles and everything else?" I braced for it. My arms were shaking, my muscles were so tense.

"Masen, I'm not going to tell them anything." Her voice was strangely high.

"What is he talking about?" Alice asked.

"Masen's just," Swan paused. "Masen's not quite over high school, I think."

"I'm just fucking fine," I insisted.

"Right," she smirked at me. Pressing her hands down on the top of the table, she looked at everyone else. "Ok, so now I'm suddenly glad I never got to sit at the cool kid's table, even when Alice was sitting there and kept trying to make me jealous."

Swan spun around and sauntered towards the dance floor, the crowd of students parting surprisingly easily to let her pass. She tugged at her bun until her hair cascaded down her back in bouncy waves.

What the hell was wrong with me?

"Edward!" Alice yelled, slamming down her glass. "Get your shit together."

Then Alice was gone too, darting through a crowd that had been far more willing to make room for Swan. Probably just didn't want Swan to touch them. I satisfied myself that this was the case until I noticed a shaggy haired boy-man suddenly barring Swan's path as she tried to navigate what looked like a dance floor. A dance floor in Newton's? Really? And who the hell was the dog draping himself all over the Beast? _Idiot_.

Swan took her glasses off of the top of her head and hooked them in the collar of her shirt, raising her hands over her head and spinning in time with the music. _She was dancing?_

"_Just a psychotic girl / And I won't get lost in your world_." I snorted at the lyrics. The song was perfect. "_Friday night in the party lights / You were acting like everything was alright / Till later on with no one around_." Swan threw her hair over one shoulder, mahogany framing ivory, and tinged pink because even from here I could tell that she was blushing.

I grimaced.

Her dog-in-training was looking down at her like he'd just won the toy surprise. Was he even old enough to drink? "_I thought you'd changed, but I should've known / You'd play nice for a time and then you'd do me wrong."_ Playing nice indeed. Playing nice with Alice just so that she could worm her way back into my life and ruin it.

Let there be no confusion—Alice could have been the sweetest, most giving person on the planet and it still wouldn't have justified Swan's willingness to seek her out. Not when a friendship with Alice inevitably meant seeing me.

And notwithstanding my sister's good intentions and often voiced sentiments, to date, Alice had most definitely _not_ been the sweetest, most giving person in the world when it came to the Beast.

Perhaps _this _was the heart of the issue. Swan had come back into our lives to prove that she'd survived unscathed. That she'd blossomed into a flower, or whatever this week's Oprah's self-help garbage claimed.

I watched as Swan spun too quickly and lost her balance. The dog caught her around the waist to set her back on her feet.

Blossomed my ass. She was a fucking mess. "_Just a psychotic girl / And I won't get lost in your world._"

She finished the song, twirling again quickly as it came to an end, laughing when the dog had to grab her around the shoulders to steady her.

She was still blushing as she came back to the table, stumbling inelegantly as she moved around the crowd. She'd yet to put her glasses back on and she seemed to have difficulty navigating without them. I realized that she must have been wearing contacts the other night.

I had to regain control of this situation. Remind Swan of her place. I wasn't going down because of her.

"How long have you lived in Seattle?" Emmett inquired as she took her seat, just as if they really were old friends getting reacquainted.

"Nine years," she answered.

_Nine years? _"Why didn't you tell me that the other night?" I snapped.

She turned and eyed me speculatively. "I was curious to know how many stupid things you could say in as short a time as possible. It was like a Japanese game show. I kept waiting for someone to sound the gong."

I felt my lip curling.

Emmett sighed. "I guess I have to go save Alice now," he said. I glanced and saw that she was indeed surrounded by a group of overly enthusiastic young men. Rising, Emmett warned Rosalie: "If my brother misbehaves, break his arm."

"Oh I will," she promised.

I rolled my eyes as Emmett plunged into the maelstrom.

"Everyone just _hates_ you, don't they?" Rosalie announced throatily.

I grimaced at her, swallowing the rest of my drink.

Laughter peeled out of Swan's lips, a chorus of bells. It set my teeth on edge. No sane person could possibly be carrying on as she was.

Then again, if she was crazy, maybe she was actually blocking some of her memories. She might have forgotten all about Port Angeles. I had to know.

"Well I suppose you're right," I started. "High school is over and you must not have suffered all that much considering your performance just now. I'm surprised actually. After your behavior the other night, I had you pegged as frigid."

Swan fixed me with a steely expression. "Enjoying your work, are you?" So much for the fun and games.

"I see you haven't forgotten everything."

"I remember _everything_." There was venom in her tone.

"But you haven't let it go, despite what you say. I can hear it in your voice."

Swan shook her head in denial. "I won't be controlled by my past."

I had no choice but to point out the flaw in her logic. "But you are." I leaned towards her, knowing she would lean away. When she did, it was my turn to smirk. "I think you're a scared little girl trying to prove otherwise. Go home little girl. There be monsters in these here waters."

"You think I'm scared?" she demanded, her voice trembling.

"I know it. For all that you keep trying to prove otherwise."

"I never try anything. I just do it," she said, her voice suddenly firm. "Wanna try me?"

I leaned back. "I would like nothing better."

She glared at me and flounced off of the stool, surprising me as she disappeared into the crowd, which once again parted for her as if in deference to her person.

"This is by far the most entertaining happy hour I've ever had the privilege of attending," Rosalie announced.

I watched Swan go up to the bar and order a drink, then head over to the music to make a selection. Before I knew it, she was next to my stool with two tequilas, complete with lime wedges and a salt shaker precariously held along with the shots.

I cocked an eyebrow.

"Come on," she ordered.

I stared at her.

"You going to make me do this shot off of Rosalie?"

I exhaled in a rush, pushing my chair back so that she had room to stand in front of me.

The song she'd selected came on then. White Zombie?

And she threw a leg over my lap.

BPOV

"'I never try anything. I just do it. Wanna try me?'" I waited. Nothing. He missed the reference. Why was I surprised?

I wasn't in control of the words that came out of my mouth after that though. I was clearly possessed.

Son of a bitch. I'd wipe that smirk right off the ass-hat's face.

I didn't let myself think about what I was doing. Absence of thought. Absence of being.

Thankfully, I didn't have to fight my way through the crowd on my way to the bar, a good quarter of the patrons being acquaintances or former students and probably future students as well, which I'm sure is right up there on the code of ethics: drunken fraternization with students. I hoped none of them had been paying attention when I'd danced with Jake earlier. _God._ I could still taste the blood in my mouth, having bitten my tongue with the anxiety I'd felt trying to get through that little ordeal. I was just lucky he'd been available-God forbid I should have had to dance with someone else-but why shouldn't he have been available? Alice had naturally picked the closest bar to the hospital, for fear her dear sainted brother would have difficulty stumbling his way here, and it also happened to be the closest bar to the university. Which meant that we were joined by not only Jake but a slew of other undergraduates as well.

I ordered my drinks and went to the juke box-music machine-whatever it was called these days. Scanning the titles, I felt a little thrill-White Zombie, Thunder Kiss '65. Fuck yeah.

Turning back to the bar, I inadvertently let my brain turn on again. A splash of fear hit the base of my spine, leaving me slightly nauseous No, I couldn't allow that. Then I spotted Jake and a whole new problem occurred to me. What would he think when he saw what I was about to do?

I cursed my luck, returning to the bar to pick up my shots, and accidentally bumped into a hot mess of ratty leather and long blonde hair. I mumbled my apologies to the hobo masquerading as a bar patron, ignoring his saucer-eyed gaze, and returned to the table.

Words tumbled out of my mouth unrestrained. I barely heard them and the next thing I knew, I had a leg thrown over Masen's lap and I was sliding into place. I glanced up-the faces of the other patrons blurring together like a mad impressionist painting left out in the rain. "_Breakdown - agony said "ecstasy" in overdrive_." I took a test grind, nowhere near Masen's crotch. Fuck him if he thought I was going to let him spit on me for making a mistake like that. This was a new game and he didn't even know the rules. "_My motor-psycho nightmare freak out_." Hands on the back of his chair, I braced myself as I rose up, squeezing my thighs around his legs for leverage. What the fuck was I doing? _Don't think!_ I bucked, tossing my hair over my shoulder. Motherfucker was going down this time. I smiled. "_Move me faster_." I took Mr. Zombie up on his excellent advice and moved faster. "_You're all shook up aren't you baby?"_ I let go of the back of the chair, sliding forward so that I was sitting on Masen's crotch this time, then threw myself backwards, my hair brushing the floor before I sat up and grabbed the shot glass. "_I never try anything. I just do it._" I ran my tongue across his collarbone. _Don't think! _He tasted like…clean skin, I supposed. "_Wanna try me_?" I seized the salt shaker and sprinkled the requisite amount over the now infamous collarbone. "_I got a heart atomic style, I make it look easy_." I ducked low to lick up the salt, holding my mouth against his skin and lapping at the drink I was slowly pouring down his neck. When I came up for the lime, Masen had stuck it in his mouth. "_Well, you can't take it with you but you can in overdrive_." I grabbed his shoulders and pulled myself into him, leaning forward to suck on the lime without touching his lips, _fuck him,_ so fucking close, and slowly grinding myself against him, not thinking, not breathing, just being, for forty five oh so short second until…

A single traitorous thought escaped into the light: _I wasn't afraid of anything_.

Self-righteous arrogance fueling mutiny: _No, I'm not afraid. Why should I be? Death will kill you just as dead however loud you scream_.

Unbidden memory: The look on Masen's face when I'd reminded him who I was earlier this evening. I'd looked him right in the eye, not flinching. _Come on motherfucker_. Electricity had shot through me. _That's right little girl, _I'd said to myself_, meet your destruction. _And I hadn't been able to help the smile. I'd chuckled. "I'm like a serial killer," I imagined someone—me-saying. "I just don't die."

_No, don't think!_

Too late.

I dropped the lime and it fell on the floor.

I steadied myself, digging my fingers into Masen's shoulders not with lust or hate.

With…how do you name this emotion? Hands shaking and heart clamoring. Could it be fear?

_Self-awareness_ poured in like fumes from a carnel house: _Explain actions_.

Movement and touching and mingled breaths-not allowed. Not to be countenanced in the light of day. Or night. Or twilight.

Whatever my plans for bringing destruction down on myself or down on Masen or down on both of us, this was not safe. Not the stuff of a body held carefully in check, muscles and limbs on lock-down lest I cause a spectacle and accidentally maim someone merely with the horror of flesh left unbound, uncontrolled, moving at its own volition. No. Stop. Return the graceless beast to her lair lest she lop off someone's head with a limb inelegantly splayed.

Nausea rolled in my stomach and I made to still myself, to stop grinding against Masen with stupid, stupid abandon.

Then I _felt _him.

Felt _him._

No.

Logic struggled to process the contradiction.

For all my foolishness about a new game with new rules, I'd known the truth all along, secretly certain that he would be repulsed by my touch. How was it possible that I could _feel_ this? This evidence of his arousal?

I made to stand up but he grabbed my shoulders, holding me in place, his fingers pressing just a little too hard into my arms, not enough to leave a bruise, but causing a tiny jolt of pain, enough to set off a chain reaction, a light exploding in the back of my head. A white pain with the memory of the back of my head hitting a wall, and my cheek scraping down the brick as I fell.

I opened my eyes and saw Masen's green eyes on mine. It was too much, too much _feeling_, and I heard his voice in my ear, younger, smoother than his voice was now, all these years later, remembering how he'd asked me "Your mother teach you any tricks?" And I was shivering in that sweltering bar, sweat pouring off of me in the early September heat and I was fucking shivering.

I wrenched myself off of him, away, and I was across the bar and the walls were tipping sideways before I realized that something had me by the waist. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out.

"Bells."

Monsters didn't know that name. Never called me by it. So whoever this was shackling me, despite all the sensory evidence to the contrary, it wasn't one of the monsters.

It was ok, I told myself that it was ok and that I didn't need to be afraid, setting aside the feeling that I was pursued, trapped, groped, because data indicated that these sensations were false and not to be trusted. I told myself to stop shaking, to stop trying to escape, to stop fighting, my pursuer's body impossibly hotter as he pressed himself up against mine, like a miniature sun, but safe. Safe, I tried to convince myself, he was safe.

"Bells, you ok?" Jacob asked me.

I looked up into his worried eyes. _No, I'm not ok. I'm coming apart at the seams, and if you knew what I was doing you'd hate me forever. You'd scrub your hands for days just to rid yourself of the stink of my flesh._

"I'm fine," someone said. Someone. Not me. Because I was dying, dead gone and already burning in hell. _Oh God it hurts_.

I pushed away from him. The pain that had no logical source felt like a cool bath now, a balm to the fear rippling down my spine and causing all the hairs on my arms to stand on end.

I walked back to the table, where Alice and Emmett now sat, obliviously arguing over dance floor etiquette, with Rosalie grinning happily on. I couldn't make myself look at Masen.

"Izzy," Alice said. "I forgot to ask, what did you and Edward wind up doing the other night?"

"The other night?" Rosalie demanded with delight. "What about what happened just now?"

"What d'you mean?" Emmett asked.

"Bella nearly gave me a lap dance," Rosalie explained, using the name I'd given her at the beginning of the night.

"And I missed it?" Emmett cried in dismay.

"She gave one to Edward instead."

"Oh," Emmett chortled.

I cleared my throat, looking at everything and everyone but Masen. _What now? _I shook my head, fighting against the feeling that I was reverting to that girl in high school who never knew how to act. I wasn't her anymore. I knew what to say to get what I wanted, at least in the classroom where I'd been secluding myself this many years, earning laughs when I quoted Martial's penetration metaphors, comparing the stasis at Corcyra to _Mad Max 3 _and stage singing "_California knows how to party._" Tonight was different though. These people were adults, not eighteen year olds forced to sign up for my class, and I had no practice socializing this way. In fact, I had no more than two whole friends in all of the world. Not that I would ever call either of them for help when I had a flat tire or was hurt in the hospital, but they were people with whom I was not unwilling to converse, and I dearly regretted the recent impositions I'd placed upon them by making one take me to a sex club and the other dance with me in a crowded bar. Until tonight, my solitude was a sweet boon to nerves stressed by the pretence of appearing normal.

I looked up at Alice. She was staring at me with an expression of such practiced concern that I could almost make myself forget the way she'd once tossed me away like garbage. The events of this evening were way out of my league. These people were masters of a subterfuge I wasn't close to comprehending.

I turned towards Masen, but couldn't bring myself to raise my head. "I'm sorry. I–." My mouth closed, the pressure in my chest making it difficult to go on.

Rosalie burst out. "Bella, I don't think that's something you ever have to apologize to a guy for. Edward seemed to be enjoying himself."

"Still," I said. I bit my lip, relaxing slightly at the stab of pain. "It wasn't right." I forced myself to glance at Masen, knowing that I deserved whatever was coming.

Ahhh-not good, not good. He was glaring at me and I knew the experiment was over.

I recoiled. "So Alice," I said hurriedly, "thank you for inviting me. It was nice seeing you again, Emmett, and meeting you Rosalie. I-I. Right."

I ran-walked out of the bar and threw myself on my motorcycle parked at the curb. I nearly ran two red lights in my haste to get home, grateful that it wasn't raining. The pain in my chest jumped and twisted impatiently as I toiled through traffic, swelling and shrinking as I struggled for breath, strange accompaniment to a vicious throbbing between my legs that the rumbling of my motorcycle only fed.

I struggled with the door of the garage, wrenching it up so that I could get my motorcycle inside, nearly sobbing with the struggle of closing it again. _Don't think. Don't think_. Stumbling down the outside stairs to my basement apartment. _It's ok_. I fumbled with the key because my hands were shaking. I managed to make it through the door and turn the locks behind me. _I'm safe._ But I was still shaking and had suddenly been struck by an alarming desire to scratch my skin off.

I threw my backpack in a corner. _That's right._ I'd taken a fucking plaid green backpack with emo little skulls to a bar so that I could ride Masen. _Ride _Masen_._

I clenched my hands into fists, digging my nails into my skin.

_This isn't real_.

I bent over and pulled my mp3 player out of my bag, putting the headphones on and turning the music on. Wrecking ball rhythm and fuck me if I cared. Waste of breath meditations and failed attempts at calming yoga that just made my anxiety skyrocket. _Stay still. Stay still. Don't move. _I tore off my top. Motherfucking Alice with her goddamn black card. I'd seen her eyes alright when I'd said my outfit was from a thrift shop. If the slut had ever had to shop in one, she'd shut the hell up and give me some props for my mad skills. _Stop thinking!_ I turned the volume on my mp3 player up all the way. "_See it coming / At my head / I'm not running / I'm not scared._" Goddamn right I wasn't running. Why the fuck should I? "_Big black monsoon / Take me with you / I'm not jerking / I won't hide / Yeah, I'm ready / Meet ze monsta tonight._" Had I really apologized? I had. I'd given that son of a bitch an apology. All for shame that I'd besmirched his lovely flesh with my foul touch. _He _was the nightmare in this equation. _He _was the one who should have been burned at a stake. _Burned. _I fought with the zipper of my pants. "_What a monsta_." Asshole. "_What a night_." I got the zipper down _"What a lover_." I started to pull my pants down. "_What a fight_." What _was _this? This _throbbing_? My thighs trembled as I pushed the fabric away. "_Big black monsoon / Take me with you_." Not possible-not possible-not possible-ahh! "_Yeah it's coming / Out of this world._" I tripped over my pants and fell on my futon. "_Yeah, I'm lucky / Lucky girl_." I groaned._ "Hell ain't half full / Take me with you_." The song changed, and my hips shifted in search of…sensation. "_I lost my heart / Under the bridge_." My hips shifted again, even as I knew that it was useless, because I wouldn't, couldn't, _feel_. Not ever. "_To that little girl / So much to me._" My movements started to become frantic, fruitless railing against the knowledge that I was dead inside, a void. "_And now I'm old / And now I holler_." I whimpered, _frustrated_ at my failure to achieve satisfaction.

But, just as I was about to give up, unwanted images of Masen's face as I rode him flashed through my mind.

Masen's eyes. Masen's glare from the bar quickly morphing into a glare he'd given me ten years earlier, in an alley in Port Angeles. I could almost feel the raw scrape of brick against my cheek. I started to quiver. "_That blue eyed girl / She said 'no more.'_" Then Masen's face was suddenly gone, replaced with my mother's-his glare becoming that sick gleam in my mother's eyes when I realized what she wanted me to do. "_That blue eyed girl / Became blue eyed whore_." Stomach churning with sense memory-my breasts groped roughly, an anonymous man's face leering in mine, his tongue in my throat. I gagged anew. "_Down by the water / I took her hand._" I arched my back, straining against the sensation as my left hand moved to my mouth of its own accord, my teeth finding purchase in the soft flesh between my thumb and forefinger as I bit down. Hard. "_Just like my daughter / Won't see her again_." I came on pain. "_Oh help me Jesus / Come through this storm._" Tasting blood, I shuddered, feeling relief for one, two, maybe three fleeting seconds of nothing, nothing, nothing. An achingly brief suspension-no thought, no mind. Absence.

Then it was over. In less than thirty seconds, I was back, once again fraught with thought, seeking to know, to name. _To identify_. What was this thing inside of me, taking the place of the pain-pleasure? What was this sensation coursing through me like fire and muting the feeling of fingers still buried in my core?

It was _hate. _Smoke and ash filled hate, emotion defying commonsense as I found myself hating. Hating Masen and my mother and myself. But that was alright. Hate required no thought. _"I had to lose her / To do her harm._"

I let the anger wash over me, setting aside the remnants of those feeble whispers of pain-pleasure that were too weak and too transient to be permitted much significance.

Dragging my dripping fingers from out of my core, I panted, knowing better than to try and reconcile the intensity of these exertions with the frailty of the pleasure they afforded. Far better to want for something than to acquire it only to realize its meager value.

_"I heard her holler / I heard her moan / My lovely daughter / I took her home._"

AN

'_I have never been truly accustomed to civil society, where all is worry, obligation, duty, and where my natural independence renders me always incapable of the subjections necessary to whoever wishes to live among men.'_ - Rousseau

'…_it is a strange feeling to go about with people who think of nothing but enjoying themselves…They run all day backward and forward in a paradise, without looking about them; and if the neighboring jaws of hell begin to open and to rage, they have recourse to St. Januarius.' _- Goethe on Naples

The song Bella dances to is The Black Keys "Psychotic Girl"

The "additional" lines from White Zombie's Thunder Kiss '65 are from _Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!_

The P.J. Harvey songs in the last scene are "Meet Ze Monsta" and "Down by the Water"

This chapter is censored.


	7. Chapter 6

Stephanie Myer owns Twilight and all of its characters. Quotes/paraphrases from _Twilight_ appear below.

My apologies for not replying to reviews. I had a paper due and work…but was also lazy. I will reply this week.

Chapter 6 - You Shouldn't

"There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself - an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly." – Antisthenes

EPOV

_Stupid girl_. Playing games the rules of which she couldn't hope to understand. I could see the shame creeping over her, gaining ground as she realized what she'd done.

Because she hadn't changed. She was still the girl in that alley in Port Angeles. And I was still that monster. If the police cruiser hadn't come by that night–

I cut the thought off.

I watched Swan make her excuses and scurry away, my family turning to stare at me after her departure as if I were responsible for this evening's general fuckery.

Which I was.

_To hell with this_.

Tamping down my anger, I forced myself to go through the motions. I went so far as to thank Alice for a lovely evening.

She was naturally suspicious: _What happened with Bella? Why are you going? Where are you going? Are you going to come back next week? What about dinner on Tuesday? No, well what about lunch? Edward, you're a resident at that hospital, not a slave. I don't believe that you're really there for more than one-hundred and sixty-eight hours a week. Fine, I'll just have to surprise you._

I ignored her threat, certain she didn't mean it.

Rosalie snickered as I walked away, whisper-screaming that I was probably just going home to take care of the _problem_ that Swan had given me.

Not bloody likely. It took more than a scared little girl to affect me. A scared little girl who had every reason to be scared of me.

A woman who represented everything I hated about myself. A woman I hated. A stuck-up bitch who had always thought that she was better than me, even before that disaster with her mother, even before Port Angeles.

I snorted as I climbed into my car. Swan really thought far too highly of herself considering she was the daughter of a whore.

But then my mother was a whore too.

_ Stop!_ I ordered myself._ Your mother is _Esme Cullen_. Esme Platt Cullen. Nothing like that two-bit slut who spread her legs for any dick with a fix._

And my rationalizations worked exactly long enough for me to start my car and pull into traffic.

_A whore…just like Renee Dwyer, who you paid fifteen dollars for a blow job because you were seventeen and she was there and you were just a piece of shit anyhow._

I slammed on the brakes.

It took me twenty minutes to drive a route that should have only taken me five. By the time I parked in the garage of my apartment building, my hands were shaking against the steering wheel.

I turned off my car and clenched the keys in my fist. Just a month ago I would have dealt with this by driving to Breaking Dawn. I would have dealt my stress out on some willing victim, '_in shameless posture on the bed_.' Victim? Hardly. '_Its secret parts exposed, it treasures all outspread as if to charm a lover's eyes.'_ I felt the keys bite into the flesh of my palm. I wanted to go to Breaking Dawn so badly that it physically hurt.

I got out of the car and stumbled towards the elevator. '_Did he at length, that man, his awful thirst too great for living flesh to satisfy, on this inert, obedient body consummate His lust?'_ I stabbed at the button for my floor, a monster, because I was only now restraining my baser instincts out of fear for what my family would think.

Fucking Alice. Dear, sainted sister, come to keep safe the Cullen reputation. I scoffed. Actions mean precious little when a person continues to sin in his thoughts.

The elevator doors opened and I glowered at the elderly couple who were already inside. How content they seemed to be in one another's company. Probably on their way home from working at a soup kitchen or reading to stray dogs.

I tugged at my hair in frustration as the elevator slowly climbed, the pain barely easing the pressure building inside my skull.

When the doors opened on my floor, I exited with a sigh of relief, rushing into my apartment and locking the door behind me, already unzipping my pants. Just so that I could feel something, anything, other than this.

This-this _thing_-that I didn't even have a name for.

I stumbled into my living room, grateful for the dark curtains that blocked out the late summer light. I didn't want light for my activities.

I dropped to my knees in front of my leather sofa, falling face forward into the cushions, images of Swan swimming before my eyes. I groaned with disgust at myself, disgust at her, her imperfect features, overlarge bottom lip and graceless mannerisms. The way she'd trip over herself. _Why?_ How was it possible that merely the thought of her flaws could have this affect on me? I turned my head against the cushion, reveling in the sensation, overcome suddenly by the thought of rubbing my cheek down Swan's bare back.

I inhaled deeply, trying to control myself. I hated her. I'd always hated her. She'd always hated me. From the very first time Alice had brought her home. She'd looked me right in the eye and told me to fuck off. I felt myself twitch at the memory of her cold disdain, her arrogance ill-suited to her poor appearance, her jeans too large for her too narrow frame and her t-shirt dotted with small holes. A girl so un-pretty. So disproportionate and awkward.

I gritted my teeth. _That bitch_. Continuing to call me _Masen _after the adoption. Bragging about how she'd known the Cullens longer, as if the summers she'd spent in Forks before I'd arrived weren't just one step above a child services-enforced separation from her mother.

_Her mother_.Who was Swan-a ball of fury and fight-to spit on me when she was no better? I remembered the revulsion on Swan's face when she saw me with her mother.

Groaning, I moved against the cushions of the couch, the despicable nature of my actions only fueling my excitement. _God_, I'd wanted to take Swan in that bus station. In front of all those people, bent over a bench while they watched.

When Swan found us in that bus station, she didn't even have to ask. She saw the money in her mother's hand. It didn't matter that my pants were neatly zipped. Swan knew exactly what we'd done. And she was disgusted, sneering at me like I was dirt.

I imagined it was Swan under me. I buried my face in the cushion, pretending it was her hair, that she was moaning beneath me, beseeching me to fuck her harder, rougher, faster, until she forgot who she was, nameless, an extension perhaps of myself. I imagined the look in her eye as she realized that she was completely helpless, marked as mine, existing only for me to fuck, _enjoying_ it only if I allowed it, and _excited_ by the comprehension of her baseness.

Standing up, I grimaced at the mess I'd made. I'd have to buy a new couch.

After cleaning myself up, I made dinner while listening to CNN.

I carefully considered my choice of after-dinner wine and tried to decide how I would go about broaching the subject of my next rotation with Eliazer.

I chose my outfit for the next day and pulled out a medical journal.

Finally, I could distract myself no more, and I gave into the hell of my own thoughts.

Careful not to let my eyes stray to the newly defiled couch, I thought about the last woman I'd fucked at Breaking Dawn, who I'd had to play with for over an hour before she could get me to come. I thought about the fact that I had never in my life had an actual girlfriend. I thought about the fact that I would never have a wife, never have children, never have anything resembling a normal life.

I thought about how it had taken Port Angeles to realize just how fucked up I was.

I remembered how I'd seen her cross the street in front of me, walking further into the warehouse district. I remembered following her, waiting until I was sure that she was lost before I announced my presence. I remembered the way she flipped her hair over her shoulder, ignoring me when I asked if she needed help.

I moved quickly, cutting her off before she could cross the street again.

But her expression surprised me. I hadn't so much as touched her and yet she was _afraid_. It was strangely sobering. I'd frozen, the anger draining away as I watched her stumble away.

And in her hurry to escape, she was already falling. I gaped, watching as she hit the brick wall.

I stepped forward to…to what? To _help_? That would have been so far out of my character. To gloat? Perhaps. That would have made more sense.

The police cruiser arrived before I could find out, the warning beep of the siren causing me to panic. I took off running down the block, and it wasn't until the following day that I learned that Swan had hit her head hard enough to pass out.

I was terrified that she might have given the police some ridiculous story about me attacking her. But the police never came knocking. Days went by and nothing happened. I still went to school, and Swan sat next to me in Biology, her hood pulled low.

At first, I thought that Swan must be planning to exact her revenge by subtle means. She would wait until I had lower my guard, then she would go to Esme and Carlisle, telling them all about Port Angeles and, perhaps worse, the encounter in the bus station with her mother. Those adoption papers wouldn't mean much then, would they? If my biological parents could give me up, why not my adoptive parents?

But it never happened. As far as I knew, she never told anyone.

After a while, it was as if nothing had happened.

Except every once in a while, I would sense her staring at me. I would look up, trying to catch her in the act, but she'd be looking away. I started to think that I was paranoid, imagining something that wasn't happening, until one day I caught her reflection in a window, the rain-streaked glass showing her white-faced glare as her eyes trained on the back of my head.

I recognized myself in her eyes-the hatred burning there reflecting back to me the monster I was. Because while I may not have meant for her to get hurt, while I might not have intended to frighten her, nevertheless her reaction rang true. Who was I? A bastard. Unwanted. Unloved. That night in Port Angeles had simply revealed the extent to which I was unfit for ordinary contact.

I had to take steps to ensure that people were protected from me.

Hence Breaking Dawn. Hence my compulsion for the basest acts, and my preference for a certain type of woman, _'cadavre impur'_.

I shook my head, as though the motion alone might rid me of my thoughts.

I had clearly been mistaken to think that I could take up with my family again. This impersonation of a normal human being had been a morbid disaster. The couch was evidence enough of that.

Well, that was it. I wouldn't bother to try again.

'_The ghost of something strange and guilty, of some feast / Involving most improper fare, / Demonic kisses, all obscure desires released, / Swims in the silent curtains there.'_

_Baudelaire 'Murdered Woman,' trans. Edna St. Vincent Millay_

My schedule at the hospital meant that I had to go two more days before I could make it to Breaking Dawn. The anxiety ate at me. I told myself that it was a penance, of sorts, and made all the more meaningful in that it was paid before the crime had even been committed.

I parked four blocks from the club and walked the extra distance, resigned still to the fact that my particular pastime ill-befit an esteemed physician.

My cell rang ten feet from the front door. I pulled it out, grimacing when I saw who was calling, but I couldn't keep putting her off. I would end it now. It would be better that way.

"Alice." I stepped into an alley as I answered.

"What the hell is your problem?"

"You will have to be more specific."

"Ignoring my phone calls and fucking with Izzy. It's just my luck that she's going to grad school in Seattle and you go and fuck it up again. Do you know that she's ignoring me now too?"

I wasn't surprised. "You should be used to that by now."

"I'm not like you Edward, I don't just cut people off."

"Because you were always so loyal."

"What the hell does that mean?"

I sighed in frustration. "Alice, I know you've probably garnered some sort of satisfaction out of lying to yourself all of these years, but do you really believe you were a good friend to her?"

"Of course."

I couldn't believe her hypocrisy. What would it take to get Alice to face the facts? "You shouldn't be friends with her."

"What are you talking about?"

"If you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from her."

"Are you insane?"

"We're no good for her Alice."

"We?"

"The Cullens."

There was a pause as she considered that. Had she finally seen the light?

"Right now, I'm thinking _you're _no good for us," she snapped.

That would be a no on the light.

"You're most likely correct," I replied.

"Call me when you pull your head out of your ass," she said before hanging up.

Resigned, I stepped out of the alley. It was for the best really. I couldn't maintain the charade around my family. I was saving them really. They were better off without me.

With that reassuring thought, I strode towards the entrance of Breaking Dawn, reconciled to continuing my solitary descent into Hell,

Speaking the required words at the door, I waved away the hostess, and glanced towards the bar, inspecting the night's offerings. I was pleased to see two slender brunettes nursing drinks. I made a quick survey of the rest of the room. Most of the tables were occupied, all with the curtains drawn, except for one in the corner occupied by three gentlemen. Perhaps I'd buy a drink and inquire if any of the back rooms were currently occupied.

I strode towards the bar and cast an oh so casual glance towards the brunettes. One of them-or better yet, both of them-yes, I'd inquire about the possibility of accompanying them to a room.

The taller one was a domme, or wanted everyone to think so, clearly asserting authority in a way that automatically cast her companion in a passive role. The taller woman kept leaning over the smaller woman's shoulder, whispering in her ear. I watched the smaller woman's torso curve forward, her arms curling around her chest in a protective stance. My mouth fell open at the meek gesture. She was wearing dark blue, a shade of which I was particularly fond. The fabric swirled around her legs as she shifted from one foot to the other. She was nervous.

I smiled. She was the one I wanted.

Hardening in anticipation, I hung back, considered my opening. How could I put the first timer at her ease while making sure the domme knew that I was the one who'd be in charge? It would be a delicate balancing act-gentling the one while mastering the other.

Just as I decided that I was satisfied with my plan of attack, the sub turned to take out her wallet and I caught a glimpse of her face. Mahogany framing ivory. Pink blush that I could see even from here.

My worst nightmare.

Isabella Swan. In Breaking Dawn.

I stumbled back. Swan could destroy me with the information she found here.

I wanted to scream with the cruelty of it. I gripped the edge of the bar, struggling not to cry out.

I had to leave before she saw me.

I had already started to shove away from the bar when I was suddenly struck by the perversity of my discovery. The overwhelming _strangeness_ of Swan's presence in this place held me rooted in place. I wanted to escape, desperately so, but I found myself pivoting all the balls of my feet, deliberating.

Then I was struck by another thought. Why should I be the one to go? It was _my_ club. I belonged here, whereas a creature such as herself could hardly attract much attention, unless the man in question happened to harbor a fetish for ugly women. Her presence here was an exercise in futility.

But if so, then Swan must have an ulterior motive in coming. She wasn't stupid. She had to know that a club like this was no place for her. She could only be here as a way to get at me.

Some demon must have sent her for my torment.

_Yet_, some part of me tried to reason, _she seems so innocuous_.

I watched her, still shifting nervously. Untouched, after all, if only because she was untouchable. Her pale skin glowed in the dim light, luminous and unblemished. Not _ugly_, per se. Only _different, _as if she wasn't quite made for this world.

_What am I doing? _I sneered.

_ What _had_ I been doing?_

To think that I'd almost approached her at the bar! I examined her again under the lens of my new knowledge and realized that I'd been gravely mistaken before. The color of her dress was a shade too bright to really be attractive. The rich tones of her hair provided too much contrast. She probably dyed it. And the dress itself had no doubt originated in a thrift shop. If I felt any attraction towards her, it was obviously a sign that the…condition that brought me to this club had reached newfound depths. Apparently, mongrels and beasts were now what it took to satiate me.

And as for the other night, the night we'd gone sightseeing, the strain of attempting to "behave" for my sister had obviously pushed me over the edge. My behavior during the lap dance…grabbing her and...it was an involuntary response to stress. I was under a great deal of strain.

Physiological responses to unsolicited stimuli cannot be held against a man.

What happened later at my apartment was simply the result of pent up energy, my excitement the result of a frisson summoned by a sudden encounter with the grotesque. It was hardly surprising given my shock at seeing her, this woman being the main witness for my worst crimes. That, juxtaposed against my efforts to convince my family that wasn't really a monster, that was enough to cause my erratic behavior. It was only to be expected.

Still, I decided, it wouldn't do to give Swan ammunition now. I had no choice but to leave. I should be grateful that she hadn't noticed me yet.

"Our plaything's come back," I heard someone purr behind me. I stiffened as I felt fingernails scratch down the back of my neck. "Do we get to keep her this time?"

Tanya.

I shook my head, despairing of escaping the club without drawing undue attention now that I'd been discovered.

"Leave her alone," I warned in a low tone. Then, to make sure of it, I dragged Tanya towards a newly empty table and pulled the curtain so that I could keep an eye on Swan without drawing her attention in return.

"Oh, why must you always ruin my fun?" Tanya pouted. I turned to glare at her. "It's not as if she'll survive the evening unbridled. We might as be the ones to tame her. See! It's already happened."

I whipped my head around to see what she meant. The three men I'd noticed earlier were approaching the bar. Tanya laughed and seized my arm. "At least we'll get to watch!"

I held my breath, waiting to see what would happen. The men didn't _have_ to speak to Swan after all. Maybe Swan was a lesbian and the domme was her girlfriend. I tried picturing the two in an intimate situation and was stymied only by the difficulty that a bitch like Swan would have adopting the role of a sub.

_Idiot! _One of the men had approached the domme, leaning up against the bar and throwing a line at the back of her head. I watched as she slowly turned around, one eyebrow raised.

Even were it not for Tanya's excitement, this show would be worth watching. I expected the domme to make short work of her suitor. So I was surprised when she smiled and left the bar with him, leaving Swan to fend for herself against the other two men.

The Swan had been run to ground.

Her suitors had her flanked. They took turns eyefucking her as she turned from one to the other. She still faced the bar, awkwardly refusing to step away, as if it offered some safety. The bartender smirked.

The taller of the two men raised a hand and rested it on the small of her back. She stiffened. The other man caressed her elbow. She finished her drink.

"Will she, or won't she?" Tanya breathed in my air. "I think our little doe is about to be snared."

"You're wrong."

"I think not. I know the type."

"You don't know _her._"

"You are so certain. Care to make a wager?"

I hesitated. The Swan who'd challenged me to a lap dance would have left with both men and never have glanced back. But the Swan who'd apologized for a lap dance wouldn't even let them buy her a drink.

"You're on," I told Tanya. If nothing else, a thorough fuck might make Swan less of a freak.

Swan turned suddenly and I reared back, afraid I'd be seen.

The curtains hid my face, however, and when I chanced another glance, Swan wasn't at the bar anymore. _What the fuck?_ I quickly scanned the other tables. The one occupied by the men earlier was now hidden, curtains drawn. Was Swan sitting with them there?

Tanya tsked. "We'll have to wait to see who comes out. She can't have left without passing right by our table. We would have noticed. She's either at that table or in a back room." Tanya laughed-what the hell was so damn funny?-and pulled on my arm. "We will take this time to renew our friendship, yes?"

I removed my arm from her grip and rubbed the bicep, trying to restore the circulation, while Tanya ordered drinks.

She started chatting about some photographer who'd told her that he was never shooting another swimsuit issue without her. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? I nodded in fucking congratulations or what-the-fuck-ever was the appropriate sentiment and glared at the curtain obscuring the other table. What the hell was she doing in there? A girl-a woman-didn't change that much, nine years be damned. Swan was nothing like her mother, despite what I'd said to her once upon a time. It was true, I'd hated her in high school-her always fucking better than thou manner, looking down her nose at me and everyone else. I wasn't the only one who'd hated her. As if she was just riding in the clouds while the rest of us were mired down in the excrement. And she made sure to let me know how little she thought of me, calling me "Masen," lest I forget that I was just an interloper trying to crawl up from the filth.

I downed a shot of Tequila and ordered another.

Swan deserved whatever she got tonight.

First time, ha! They'd eat her alive.

The second Tequila arrived just as an ankle slid out from under the curtain of the other table, the sole clad in a blue flat that just happened to match Swan's dress. So she _was_ there, and in a less than dignified position if the location of this ankle was any indication. At least she wasn't in a back room.

Tanya answered her cell as the ankle was snatched out of view. Fucking torture. Why couldn't Swan either go in a back room or keep herself out of sight behind those curtains? Better yet, leave. Why couldn't she leave?

The ankle reappeared, jerking in an agitated manner. Really? She was having sex out here? So what if there were curtains? Swan was acting like a fucking whore.

The ankle disappeared and the curtain trembled.

When the ankle reappeared a moment later, it was followed by a calf, inching determinedly forward. They both jerked out of sight.

I shook my head. Swan deserved whatever she was getting. She had a mouth, didn't she? She could call for help if she needed it.

_Just like that night in Port Angeles_.

I was across the room and had the curtains open before I registered that I'd moved. Swan was laying back-pushed back-against the cushions, her dress pulled off one shoulder and hiked up to her waist. The panties were black.

I blinked, raising my eyes to her face as her…companions began shouting at me. She didn't say a word. Just looked at me, her eyes as wide as saucers. She looked like a fucking deer in the headlights. Tanya and her stupid metaphors.

I didn't think, pulling the closest man out of the booth and shoving him aside. Grabbing Swan's hand, I yanked her up. The second idiot stood to block me as I turned, but I pushed him aside as easily as his friend.

I was out of the club and on the street before I remembered Tanya.

I could count on her though. No doubt she was plying Swan's assailants with drinks before the front door closed behind us.

And so I found myself standing on the street outside my sex club, clutching Swan's hand.

I was so fucked.

"I bet you fall in bed too easily / With the beautiful girls who are shyly brave / And you sell yourself as a man to save / But all the money in the world is not enough / I bet you've long since passed understanding / What it takes to be satisfied / You're like a vine that keeps climbing higher / But all the money in the world is not enough / And all the bridges blown away keep floating up / It's cold / And rough / And I kept standing six-feet-one / Instead of five-feet-two / And I loved my life / And I hated you"

Liz Phair 6"1'

BPOV

There was a man on a street holding a woman's hand. It was 9:30 at night, so the streetlights were on. Every so often, a car would drive past. The street wasn't in the least bit deserted. Not like a certain stretch of warehouses in Port Angeles.

The street was lined with shops and restaurants. There was a coffeehouse on the corner, and an unmarked sex club a few doors down, but you wouldn't have suspected anything from the placid exterior.

A family with three children was coming out of one of the restaurants. An elderly woman was locking up a high end interior design shop. A boisterous bunch of thirty-somethings were charging towards a bar. People sat in the coffeehouse on the corner talking and reading; you could see them through the window. The restaurants were more discreet, their windows well curtained and dimly lit. The sex club didn't have windows.

It might have been any street in any city.

A make-believe street in a make-believe city, all artifice and deceit, store fronts of sugar and hard candy roofs. Subterfuge being the only way to explain the disconnect between objective and subjective perception-the cold hypocrisy of maintaining a changeless face while I shuddered and shook. The ground under me was quaking so violently that I was surprised that I wasn't stumbling with the force, the traitor sidewalk somehow holding its shape, its smooth concrete face free of fissures and cracks.

I wondered if Masen felt it too.

"Masen?"

He spun around and stared at me, eyes wild. Oh, he felt it alright. Hyperventilating, he was gripping my hand so hard that it hurt.

Looking down at where our hands were joined, he spun again, dragging me behind him as he crossed the street. I tripped, Masen's iron grip on my hand keeping me upright. _Masen_ saving me.

He led the way into the coffeehouse. At least we would have witnesses.

He ordered a solo espresso, and had I not known him better, knowing him so well even after all these years, I might not have noticed how those velvet tones masked a barely suppressed rage.

He looked at me expectantly and I ordered a chai, letting him pay for both of us and being rewarded for my efforts when he released my hand. But lest I bolt, he stood between me and the exit. We sat at a table in the back, and as I took my seat, I thought to myself that, were I not myself, were I someone else in another coffeehouse in another city, I wouldn't have hesitated to sit with him and drink a chai. Because why shouldn't two old acquaintances be able to engage in conversation? Two enemies, perhaps, but that was really very childish of me, wasn't it? After all, he had something I wanted.

So because it wasn't something I would do, because I wasn't myself anymore, I sat with him and drank my chai.

"What were you doing there?" Masen demanded right out of the gate.

What _had _I been doing there? My activities this evening lay far outside the norm. Nevertheless, the question was tedious. Why should Masen assume that I was abnormal? Couldn't I be like everyone else? Slave of sensation.

"I would have thought that was obvious," I deflected.

Masen was none too pleased. "It's really too much of a coincidence, don't you think, that we'd end up there together?" His tone was accusatory.

"I didn't follow you there," I defended myself. And it was true. I'd gone with Angela, because of Dr. Volturri. In fact, it was all because of Dr. Volturri. I never would have met my fairy godmother had Dr. Volturri not been convinced that I was in such desperate need of _education _of a certain sort. Hence Breaking Dawn and the fairy godmother I met there.

"You went there on your own?" Masen's tone was disbelieving. "You looked like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming semi." He smiled, obviously relishing the memory.

How fortunate that I could provide his entertainment for the evening.

"I went there with a friend."

"I saw her. Are you a lesbian?"

I nearly snorted my chai. His face showed nothing but polite interest. I suppose it made sense to him that I was a lesbian, as that would effectively remove me from the realm of creatures capable of attracting the opposite sex. Of attracting _him._ I was tempted to confirm his deduction and watch the ass spin his wheels, but that would hardly help me achieve my ultimate objective. I settled for sarcasm: "The men I was with didn't seem to think so."

"So you're not a lesbian?"

What a stupid line of inquiry. I glared at him. "I don't see how it matters to you."

Masen smirked, imagining that my avoidance was equivalent to an admission. "I just want to know."

"Get used to disappointment. It builds character."

"Success builds character too."

"I wouldn't know."

"No, you wouldn't."

I started to stand.

"Don't go." Masen raised a hand to stop me.

"Stop being an asshole."

"You bring it out in me."

"Still blaming your dysfunctions on others?"

Masen nodded. "I'll concede my overarching personality flaws if you'll stop evading the question."

"I'd prefer to hear your theories."

"Humor me and you will."

He was mocking me, I was sure of it. Nevertheless, in for a penny, in for a pound, even if none of my fairy godmother's conversation suggestions had included topics like this. I sat back down. "I'm not a lesbian. I'm not anything."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't feel attraction. Ever. To anyone."

Masen's forehead furrowed. "Less than one percent of the population is genuinely asexual."

I shrugged. This wasn't what I was supposed to say. My fairy godmother had been very explicit: _Cross a leg, flash a bit of thigh. _There was something about eyelashes_. Let him assume what he wants. Avoid direct answers_. What-the-fuck-ever. How she thought that would work was beyond me.

He was quiet for a minute. "Has Oprah done an episode on it?"

What? Oprah? On flirting?

He went on: "I mean, it must make you feel special having such a rare disorder."

I realized what he meant. He thought I was lying about my disinterest in sex. "Oh, I feel special. Probably as special as you feel about being a sadist." Because that had to be more fucked up than anything I had going on. It wasn't as if I was hurting anyone_._

Motherfucker smirked again. "Not special at all. Assuming you're correct about me, sadists are far more numerous than asexuals. I don't believe you've never felt an attraction to anyone. You're probably just frigid. Do you masturbate?"

I couldn't help the blush.

"Thought so," he intoned.

_Focus Swan. _"It's very…infrequent." My goddamn fairy godmother never told me what to say if he asked that particular question. She probably would have told me to lie. To quiver with surprise and whisper, _'Oh no, Mr. Cullen sir, I've never touched myself, like _that.' Because _that_ was believable in 2010. Even if I was no good at getting off, and I usually wasn't, I still would have tried.

"How infrequent?"

I gritted my teeth. "Every two years. Maybe."

"When was the last time?"

I shook my head, refusing to answer. I had reached my limit.

Masen leaned towards me conspiratorially and whispered: "It was the other night, wasn't it? After the bar?"

"No!"

My denial was a little _too _vehement.

"It's alright to admit that you're attracted to me."

"On what planet is that alright?" I snapped, too disgruntled to address the more central issue of whether or not he was correct in his assumptions.

"I can understand that you want to believe that you're not attracted to me. You probably think that you're above that sort of thing. Especially after your mother."

"She has _nothing_ to do with this," I hissed.

Masen was nonplussed. "You don't have to act so disgusted. I wasn't the only one who gave her money that night."

I wrinkled my nose in distaste. "That actually makes you _worse_," I explained.

"What's so different between what your mother did and paying someone to clean your house or run a football down a field?"

I clarified: "Nothing whatsoever. I couldn't care less what my mother or anyone else does for a living." And I meant it. I could compartmentalize with the best of them.

"Really?" He seemed surprised. "Then what is–"

"I objected when my mother's manner of making a profit started to interfere with _my_ life."

Masen looked away. "I suppose that I did flog you with it then." _Flog. _Really? He settled back in his chair. "I've matured a lot since high school."

How pleasant for him.

"For instance, I used to blame myself for what happened with your mother. Like I was somehow to blame."

Right. I suppose that my mother had mugged him.

"The prostitute is the one who really has the power," he concluded matter of factly.

"Somehow I never thought to tell my mother that when she came home with a black eye."

He looked at me cautiously. "And your father—"

"Never found out. Despite your little stunt."

"I suppose you saw—things, before you left Arizona?"

I huffed. "Why yes, Masen. My mother hosted brunch every Sunday with her co-workers. They were in the habit of discussing the most diverse topics. Indeed, I miss it so much that I've recently started a Garden Society for Seattle's most notorious hookers. You can join if you want, but you'll have to put out."

"I just meant that growing up in that kind of environment could have more than a little something to do with your…condition."

"You a fucking psychiatrist too? Or do you just want to assure yourself that _you're _not the reason for my, what did you call it, _my condition_?"

Masen grimaced. "Explain my interest however you want. Do you see your mother anymore?"

"Why? You want to know if her rates have gone up?"

His nostrils flared. "I suppose you're one of those people who thinks the customer's to blame?"

My shoulders slumped. "I don't know Masen. Don't you think it's a little pathetic that you paid someone to give you a blow job when you could have gotten one for free? Wasn't Jessica Stanley handing them out for a pat on the head?"

"I wasn't in a very good place at the time." Masen paused. "I was really wasted. That night. All of the time actually."

"And apparently hanging around the bus station a lot."

"I didn't even know who she was until you got there."

"And you wasted no effort making sure _I _paid for it. Ironic, don't you think? I should have just returned my mother's fee and been done with it."

"I didn't tell anyone else, you know. I could have."

"This is how you defend yourself? I should feel grateful that you didn't tell everyone?"

"I'm not apologizing. I didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm not asking for an apology. What you do on your free time is your own business."

He hesitated. "About the other thing—"

"Do _not_ say another goddamn word," I was seething. This was most certainly not in my fairy godmother's script. I'd told her all about Port Angeles, and what had she said? _Pretend that you've forgotten._ Forget? How could I? "Speak one word about that night and I will get up and walk away."

"You're clearly still upset about it."

"No Masen, I'm like this all the time. With everyone. Fucking lemon drops and bubblegum. If you can't take my shit, there's the door." I nodded towards the exit.

"You could at least show a little gratitude to the person who saved you tonight."

"Saved?" I laughed. "Who did you save? I was just fine. If I needed someone's help, I would have yelled." My fairy godmother was going to be pissed at me.

"Like you did in Port Angeles?"

The smile was gone. There could be no joking about this. "We don't talk about that, you and me. Never."

"Why not? Isn't that why you've come back?"

"Come back?" I shook my head in amazement.

"To get an apology?"

I had to stop this _now_. "There was no Port Angeles, Masen. It never happened."

He looked at me as if he didn't believe me. "I want you to know that I'm not the same person anymore."

Next he was going to be telling me that he'd found Jesus. "_First off_, you don't know dick about me," I whispered hoarsely. "You don't know a motherfucking thing. _Second_, I don't give a shit about your growth. I don't care if you've got a goddamned spruce tree coming out of your ass. So you can take a flying fuck with your personal growth."

He was glaring at me by the time I was done. "I would have thought that someone like you would have a special interest in ensuring that certain dangers are _controlled_. My mistake."

So it was _my _job to monitor deviants like Masen? I raised an eyebrow. "Tell me, Masen, how does a pervert such as yourself ensure that he's under _control_?"

"You should have that figured out already. I guess they're getting lax on the entrance standards for the University of Seattle. I'll have to speak to the Dean of Admissions."

I chose to ignore his jibe and address instead his preferred method of maintaining control. "Breaking Dawn? So fucking what? You have copious amounts of sex."

"It's power that matters, not sex."

"Well thank you for that invaluable insight into the fractured psyche of perverts. Because I really give a fuck. You sound like a cliché from an undergraduate women's studies seminar."

"It's not a cliché. Or it's a cliché because it's true. Breaking Dawn is really the best option for someone like me who is trying to find a way to redirect urges."

"Urges?" I sneered.

"To dominate."

Oh my God.

He went on: "It's really the submissive who has the power though."

I was going to stab him with the wooden stirrer that had come with my drink. Somehow I had to keep the wood from snapping when it hit the front of his skull. How could I keep it from splintering?

"The safe word's key," he concluded with a flourish, as if he'd just explained base 10 to CroMagnon Man.

"Bullshit," I replied in an even tone. I was going to call this fucker out.

"What part?"

"All of it. The motherfucker with power's the motherfucker with power. The rest of that's just fairytales."

"How do you know, if you've never tried?"

"I've never stuck my head in an oven but I'm pretty sure of the results."

"An oven? Who are you, Sylvia Plath? Someone might wonder if you've got suicidal tendencies after all, especially considering your decision to take up with the Cullens again."

I laughed. "The _Cullens_? You're an upper middleclass family, not the fucking mob."

"We're no good for you though. Anyone with half a brain could see that. Are you so desperate for companionship that you would consent to being Alice's pet again?"

"For all you know, I'm the one using your sister this time."

"I think that highly unlikely."

"Try me and find out." I glanced over his shoulder. "Not tonight though. They're closing." I stood up.

Masen rose with me. "I'll walk you to your car," he announced. _Always the gentleman_.

"You do that," I told him, getting to the exit before him and letting the door close in his face.

"What are you doing?" he asked when he caught up to me and saw me leaning up against the bus stop.

"Awaiting a carriage, milord."

"You're taking the bus?"

"That's generally the reward for waiting at one of these here calling stations. It's just a local bus, unfortunately. No hookers from out of town tonight."

"It's after eleven o'clock."

"I'm sorry." I tried to sound contrite. "Is it past your bedtime?"

"You're not taking a bus at eleven o'clock at night."

"Ok."

"Ok?'

"Ok."

He looked confused. "You're still standing there."

"I'm not going to fight with you. You don't want me to take the bus, so I promise I won't. Now run along so that the pay-as-you-go motorized traveling machine can convey me to someplace that's not here. You may come to realize that I'm a liar."

He crossed his arms and turned to face the street.

"Taking the bus too?" I inquired politely.

"I'll wait until it gets here at least."

"How bourgeousie!"

"This is part of your strategy, you know-distancing people. If you just let someone in, you wouldn't be so frigid."

"Gee willakers Jimmy, is it really that easy? I've just got to let someone in and then I get to be a real girl too? Well let me run out and find someone to let in right now!"

Masen looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "It wouldn't kill you to try."

"Applying for the job?"

He snorted. "Not fucking likely."

"Then shut the fuck up about what I should and shouldn't do."

He spun to face me again. "I think you're afraid."

I took an involuntarily step back and winced at the show of weakness. "Afraid of strange men in the street?" I tried to laugh it off. "I can't imagine why."

"Afraid to lose control. To hand control over to someone else."

"And this is coming from someone who admits to taking pleasure in _domination_."

He raised his shoulders. "There must be pleasure in submission, or I'd never find anyone willing to let me take over." He paused. "I'd like to see you out of control."

I took a deep breath, trying to rein in my anger. "You don't want to see me _out of control_, Masen."

He had the audacity to smirk. "Oh no? Why not?"

I wanted to spit on him. Or slap him. Where was my wooden stirrer? "What on earth could you possibly have to gain from it?"

He gestured strangely. "It's not what I would gain."

Meaning it was what _I _would gain. It would be his motherfucking _gift _to me.

I suddenly didn't think he was standing close enough. In fact, I took two full steps forward so that I was only an inch from his face. "Listen Masen, and listen good. I know your game. And you're not getting anything here. You want to know wild? You want to know crazy? She's a monster. A maenad in the woods. She rips the head off her own son without realizing what she's done."

He actually looked shocked. "Who's the one telling fairytales now?"

I stepped back again. "It's not a fairytale if it's true."

"That isn't what happens when a woman loses control for me. Why would I want to see that? Why would I suggest that for you?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Who knows the machinations a pretty boy will use on a beast? Throw her off balance with lies then show her a mirror." I shook my head.

"I'm confused. Are you a maenad, or a medusa?"

"Neither. They don't exist."

'_She must have been quite young…her senses, all her soul, / Avid for life and driven wild / By tedium, set ajar, it may be, to the whole / Pack of perversions…ah, poor child!'_

_Baudelaire ' Murdered Woman,' trans. Edna St. Vincent Millay_

EPOV

Swan was out of her goddamn mind.

Fine. She wanted to stand on a street corner and get murdered by a random serial killer? Let it be on her head.

I turned to leave.

And it started to rain. Of course.

It wasn't supposed to rain this evening. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky all day. There wasn't even a light mist to warn pedestrians of the impending shower. But it was full out raining now.

I glanced at Swan and saw that she was already hiding under the awning of the coffeehouse.

"Wait there and I'll get my car," I ordered, not bothering to wait for her to answer.

I ran all four blocks, thoroughly soaked by the time I unlocked the door of my car and climbed in. I turned the heater on full and pulled out of the garage to drive back.

Only to see Swan crossing the street in front of me.

I hated that bitch.

"Get in," I told her, pulling up alongside and leaning over to open the door.

"Fuck off." She kept walking, an umbrella covered in stupid dogs doing little to shield her from the rain.

"Get in the goddamn car!" I growled, following slowly behind her, rain slanting through the open door onto the leather upholstery.

"No!" She paused to slam the door closed.

I smashed down on the brakes and put the car in park, leaving my door open as I sprinted around the car to head her off. "Stop being childish," I told her.

"Don't fucking touch me!" she warned.

I raised my hands in front of her, not touching her but not letting her pass either. "Get in the fucking car."

She glared at me. "Stop being irrational."

"Walking home in the rain when you've got a ride is rational?"

"When Masen's the one driving the car it is."

I dropped my hands. "Are we just going to stand here in the rain like this?"

"I've got an umbrella," she pointed out three seconds before a gust turned said umbrella inside out.

Swan didn't even flinch. She pushed her sopping hair off her face. "I have infinite stores of patience," she promised.

Fine.

I got back in my car, and shifted into drive. She started walking again, tugging at the umbrella to turn it right side out.

I could tell the exact second when she realized that I wasn't driving away-her head started to tilt in my direction, only for her to catch herself, her head remaining slanted at that awkward angle as she walked. I easily kept pace in my Volvo with the newly ruined interior.

"Why didn't you wait for the bus?" I snarled through the open passenger window, having to shout so that she could hear me over the slap of the rain.

"The last one picked up at 10:30." Swan tossed back at me, as if it was common knowledge.

Her tone was so nonchalant, I had to ask. "Did you know that the whole time?"

"I thought you would get bored and go away," she defended herself.

"Then what? You were going to walk home?"

"I wasn't going to waste money on a cab."

I moved on. "Why didn't you wait for me to come back with the car?"

"I didn't want to have to see you anymore. I _don't_ want to see you anymore."

"Why not?"

"You're an asshole."

I gritted my teeth. "You feel so strongly, it must be a powerful passion you're trying to overcome."

"Masen please," she huffed. "I don't want to fuck you. I don't fuck pretty boys. They're far too easy, and nothing worth having is easy."

Still seeing red, I couldn't help the descent into the juvenile. "Oh, I'm hard. I assure you."

"What are you, twelve?" she sneered.

_Yes, probably._

I rolled to a stop at a red light and Swan continued right on through the intersection, not bothering to spare me a glance. She was almost a block away when the light changed.

"Wanting something doesn't make you a whore," I yelled as soon as I'd caught up with her again.

"Pretending to feel something that you don't does."

"I think you say things merely to be witty," I argued. "You don't mean them."

"That must be very reassuring for you."

"I know you can't possibly be this indifferent. You wouldn't have inserted yourself back in my sister's life if that were the case."

Swan stopped in front of a house and I glanced up at a street sign. She was home.

Bending over to look at me through the passenger window, she couldn't resist one final dig. "You want me to lose control? I'll tear your throat out. Be grateful that I'm a vegetarian."

"I trust you."

"You shouldn't."

**AN**

It occurred to me that I'm not entirely opposed to a website and its readers controlling the content; hence, the above is somewhat censored. If Twilighted doesn't balk at what I like to consider my avante-garde verbal flourishes, I'll post uncensored chapters there.

'_A corpse without a head…The headless trunk, in shameless posture on the bed, / Naked, in loose abandon lies, / Its secret parts exposed, its treasures all outspread / As if to charm a lover's eyes…Did he at length, that man, his awful thirst too great / For living flesh to satisfy, / On this inert, obedient body consummate / His lust?-O ravished corpse, reply!…I leave you lying as you are, / Mysterious unfortunate. / In vain your lover roves the world; the thought of you / Troubles each chamber where he lies; / Even as you are true to him, he will be true / To you, no doubt, until he dies._'

Baudelaire 'Murdered Woman,' trans. Edna St. Vincent Millay

The unwilling maenad who tears off her son's head is named Agave. Driven mad by the god Dionysius, she kills her son, then realizing her mistake, exiles herself from her home.

Of course, the references to hearing Edward's theories and to trusting Bella are from _Twilight_. Originally though, wasn't Bella the one with the theories and Edward the one mistakenly inspiring trust? Wouldn't that make this Bella the…oh dear.


	8. Chapter 7

Stephanie Myers owns Twilight and its characters.

But I should also note that Bella walked away in the last chapter because she didn't in "Deconstructing Dracula." Fanfiction-the ultimate vengeance.

Chapter 7 – The Cullens Again

"Me myself and I / Will never be lonely / As long as I / Stick together / Like glue / Without you / I lie here on the couch / Thinking about potatoes and me / And I realize / Destined to be French fries / Me myself / Me myself and I / My ship's been tossed about / Have some decency / The only friends I've got left / Are my idiosyncrasies / Me myself / Me myself and I"

L7 "Me Myself and I"

BPOV

He laughed at me. I warned him not to trust me and he laughed. I stood in the rain, an object of ridicule. Of course he would laugh. For all he knew, a monster like me-the kind of monster I _had _to be to deserve the treatment they'd once dealt me-she could snap his neck with a flick of her wrist. But he didn't care.

I left Masen laughing in his car. Turning to fumble with my keys, I was surprised to find that my hands were shaking, not with cold, not with fear, but with anger. I shook my head. _This_ was what I was protecting him from. Irrational explosions of anger and everything else he wouldn't want to see. Skin and hair and teeth. My humanity all done up in an ugly bow. I'd worked so hard since high school to spare everyone that. _Walk in careful lines. Don't trip. Speak just so, not too loudly, don't guffaw_. Only to throw all my restraint out the window as soon as I reinserted myself in the Cullens' lives.

I forced my door open and went inside, not waiting to see if Masen had driven away, trembling as the surge of anger dissipated, taking the last of my strength with it. This wasn't me-I never got angry. It was a superfluous emotion unconducive to the accomplishment of rational objectives.

Exhausted, I locked the door behind me and dragged myself to the bathroom and began peeling off my wet clothes.

The creature in the mirror scowled back at me. Dull white skin and hair like ropes over limbs that hung akimbo, ungraceful. Breasts too small to compensate for thighs bearing marks that only attract fans of Rubens, protruding ribs contrasting oddly against evidence of excess flesh. And tired, overlarge eyes threatening to pull unwary persons into their dark, dangerous depths, with purple bruises underneath. A test model maybe, made before God had figured out exactly what it was He wanted.

I squinted and the image blurred. A lock of hair had wrapped itself around my arm. I tried to brush it aside, but it clung, gripping like a snake, and I imagined it growing, squirming and twisting until it had wrapped itself around the rest of my body, curving over my stomach and disappearing around my back, the serpent's head reappearing over my left breast. _'I have seen the holy Maenads, the women who ran barefoot and crazy from the city…they let their hair fall loose, down over their shoulders, and…fastened their skins of fawn with writhing snakes that licked their cheeks.' _I felt strange. Other.

Of course, I had noticed Masen as soon as he'd walked into the club. I had felt him watching me at the bar and I'd known that he was still watching when I disappeared into that booth.

The bile was already rising in my throat when I'd felt the hand sliding under my skirt. Fingers were fumbling over my breast as I'd fought with myself: _Stay. No, go! _I had clenched my jaw, trying to steel my nerves. I'd come here for just this, after all. _Just…just let them do it. _He's _watching. Argh! Rip their throats out with your teeth. No, just let them-_Masen's _the one that matters. Masen be damned, drink them dry…._ If Masen hadn't interrupted us, I couldn't even imagine.

I stared at my reflection, remembering my confusion.

I was trying to be logical. I had started all of this, accepting my fairy godmother's offer, because it made sense. I had told myself that subterfuge was permissible so long as the reward was worth it.

But something in me rebelled, wouldn't let me tell the lies I need to tell. Not if it meant letting myself be groped in a dark booth.

'_The greedy man does no one any good, but harms no person more than his own self.'_

Why the sudden eagerness to improve my position in life? I was successful. My students liked me. I was a good teacher.

I _was_ tired, it was true. I worked _all the time_. It was worth it though, if it kep me out of the poverty that had driven my mother to such extremes. I would never be in any one's debt. So why had my fairy godmother's offer seemed so tempting?

I had been so arrogant, convinced of my own strength of character. _I will never change_, I had told myself. But this, this _game _was changing me, encouraging the blackest thoughts.

I wrapped a towel around myself, hiding my body.

The reward for following my fairy godmother's instructions wasn't worth it, not if it meant I lost myself in the process. I laughed at the thought, a strange hysterical sound. To think that I was afraid of losing myself and I was only half trying to follow her directives. God only knew what would happen if I put some real effort into playing nice with Masen.

Had I been following my fairy godmother's instructions to the letter, I _would _have drunk coffee with him. I would have thanked him for seeing to my welfare, letting him see just how grateful I was. I would have let him drive me home, engaging him in conversation designed to entice and tempt. Instead, I'd told him about _my condition_, as he called it, my inclination to avoid the companionship of idlers and sycophants. _Slaves of sensation._ It was much better that I avoid such _entanglements_ lest I be driven to scratch my skin off.

So I was a monster. Medusa run riot. But Masen was clearly no better, contenting himself with the shallow rewards of the flesh and happy enough to address the physical needs of his patients. High priest to a shadow-world. How ironic, if only in a tragic sense, that a man of science should lose himself to the irrationality of skin and bone.

I toweled off and pulled on my clothes, a holey t-shirt and a cheap pair of plain white underwear, five for six dollars from Walmart. Hardly the uniform of a seductress.

What would Masen think if he saw me now? If he knew what I'd become? Bella Swan, who preferred the company of the dogs she walked to her two friends. Who overcame her shyness to talk to her students, and succeeded because she was permanently frozen at the age of fifteen, the year she'd left her mother to come to Forks, running away from things she was too immature to handle. Bella Swan, who was loathe to shake hands and carried hand wipes everywhere, a vegetarian who could never afford to eat fresh vegetables. Bella Swan, who shopped at thrift shops and slept on a cheap, uncomfortable futon and never had less than four jobs at any one time. Bella Swan, who had nearly let herself become a whore. Just like her mother.

My hands curled into fists at my sides. All his talk about _my condition. _I shouldn't have let him get to me. But my need to correct, to ensure precision, goaded me into honesty. Masen clearly wanted to see me broken, and he had said just the right things to break me. Even hours later, I felt myself overcome with those old feelings of worthlessness. I'd been disturbingly candid. The things I'd told him were true, that was just it. They were _genuine_, so much so that I couldn't _not_ say them, the pressure in my chest building as I tried to resist the urge to loose the words from my lips.

I closed my eyes against the memory, the pain in my chest evolving into a tearing sensation as I realized that I was feeling-really _feeling_-for the first time in years.

I didn't care for it. I wanted it over. Absence of sensation. Euthymia and chill peace. Had I really been hurting anyone with my old indifference? Did it really matter that I had the sensibilities of a child so long as I avoided others?

_It comes from desire_, I told myself. _From wanting things_._ Without it, everything could just stay the same._

I breathed deeply. Had I not been so greedy, I never would have contemplated my fairy godmother's offer. '_I would never exchange my virtue for gold, for my virtue endures, while riches change their owner every day.' _Besides, it wasn't as if I was the kind of person who could nonchalantly use another person-really exploit them-to achieve my own selfish ends. I wasn't like Alice or Masen. I couldn't just take advantage of someone, even a Cullen.

I could go on working six jobs if that's what it took. I didn't need my fairy godmother's money.

I nodded to myself. I was done with the Cullens. My fairy godmother could go to hell.

"Who have I become? My sweetest friend. Everyone I know goes away in the end. You could have it all. My empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt. If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself. I would find a way."

Nine Inch Nails "Hurt"

I was in a much better mood as I left for school the next morning, having decided to put all the nonsense with the Cullens behind me. I was lighter, eager for my first discussion group and determined not to let Dr. Volturri get to me.

Angela was sitting on the sofa in the TA lounge when I walked in.

"Hey Bella," she smiled. "I'm sorry about last night. Did you get home alright?"

I grimaced, then chastised myself, determined to deflect. "Did _you_?" I asked, throwing myself down in the chair opposite her. If I was never going to have more than two friends in my life, it wouldn't do to alienate one of them.

Her smile only widened. "I just left. Fortunately, I keep a change of clothes in my car."

I tried to think of something to say. "Slut." I felt my jaw fall open. I hadn't meant to say that.

"Jealous?"

Why did I have to be so fucking awkward? I shrugged. What Angela didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Clearing her throat, Angela began to frown. "So I told Dr. Volturri that you came with me to the club."

I closed my eyes. If not for Dr. Volturri, none of this would have happened. I decided to deflect again. "I blame the deconstructionists. Objectivity used to be a good thing."

"The absence of desire is merely desire inverted."

"I hate you."

"Don't you like it when I talk dirty?"

I sniffed. "I hardly know what you mean."

"If only I were a lesbian."

I cringed, remembering my conversation with Masen the previous night. Oh well, at least I'd never have to see him again. "Please Angie, you know you'd go gay for me."

"Can I watch?" a male voice asked.

I turned around, realizing that Jake had crept in unbeknownst.

"I don't know Jake" I warned. "It might be too much for you to handle."

"Don't get a boy's hopes up for nothing, Bells. It's just cruel. And by hopes, I mean–"

"Don't finish that sentence!" Angela yelled.

I shifted uneasily. This was no doubt how friends spoke to each other all the time. I was the one out of place. In fact, I should probably be grateful that they even bothered to include me in their conversations. Why did they always have to be so _nice_?

I realized then that I'd spent more time with the two of them in the last few days than in the last three months together. Perhaps that would have to stop too.

Chuckling, Jake grabbed a cup and started pouring himself some coffee. "Before I forget," he said over his shoulder. "Dr. Volturri wants to see you before class today, Bells."

Shuddering, I put my head in my hands.

"Oh, come on. It won't be that bad being her TA. Make your students reenact some martyrdoms on the quad," Angela suggested. "That'll really impress her."

"Right," Jake replied. "I wonder which student group that would piss off more."

I shook my head at them. "Mock, if you must. Suffering is good for the soul."

Laughing at my eccentricities, they wished me luck as I left.

Dr. Volturri was in a hurry. She shoved a sheet of paper at me as she packed a briefcase. "Here's a list of critical authors you should read. It would be beneficial for you to actually know what you're talking about the next time you open up your mouth."

I wasn't sure how Erica Jong could help me write a dissertation on the late Roman novel, but I decided to leave that alone at present.

"I expect to have your revised draft by the end of this week."

I choked. "The end of this week? How revised is revised?"

Dr. Volturri pressed a red fingernail into the wood of her desk, leaving behind a mark. "I expect it to be as revised as it needs to be. My time is very valuable to me. Also, I would appreciate it if you would avoid taking a flip tone with me."

"I'm sorry–" I started to apologize.

She snorted. "Save it. Dr. Banner may put up with this sort of behavior, but I assure you that it will not be tolerated when you are working with me. Given the current state of your prospectus, and the fact that you are now _my_ TA, we will be working together a great deal this semester."

She smiled. _Bitch._

"That is all. You may go."

Cue the ritual prostration. "Thank you Dr. Volturri. I really appreciate..."

She flicked a few fingers in dismissal.

I was only able to flee as far as one of the empty lecture halls in the basement, where I had a few minutes before Dr. Volturri's lecture. I used the time to castigate myself for all of the time I'd been wasting recently-at Breaking Dawn, with the Cullens, even the few minutes I'd spent with Angela and Jake this morning. All of it time that could have been spent working on my prospectus.

Determined not to lose another minute, I studied the list that Dr. Volturri had given me. I began putting asterisks next to the ones that I'd never heard of, and idly noticed a student coming through the door.

I crossed out a few of the titles, deciding that I didn't care what Freud thought about Greek myth, and paused. The newcomer still hadn't sat down. In fact, he-or she-had come to stand directly in front of me, stopping about two feet away.

I schooled my features into an expression of practiced authority and glanced up.

A young man with dirty blonde hair was staring at me, an oddly intent look upon his face.

I stymied a pang of discomfort-after all, it's wrong to feel prejudicial against any one person when you dislike everyone so indiscriminately-and spoke. "Hello?" Why did it sound like I was asking a question? "Can I help you?"

He of the pale features didn't reply.

"Are you in Dr. Volturri's class?" I inquired.

The door opened again and I felt myself relax. At least we weren't alone anymore.

"Is this Dr. Volturri's class?" he spoke at last.

"In about fifteen minutes. Yes."

He kept standing there.

"Why don't you take a seat?" I gestured towards the three-hundred empty chairs around me. _Dear God, don't let him sit next to me._

He still didn't move.

"So, I-umm." Stuttering, I stopped. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why was I suddenly letting myself be intimidated by a fucking eighteen year old? Fucking Masen!

I cleared my throat. "So, unless you have a question. I have some work to do before class starts." I looked back down at my list of books.

\ _Penetrating Discourse and the Erotics of Submission_

No, really, I wasn't in the least bit uncomfortable reading a list of over-intellectualized debauchery how-to manuals with a serial killer in training leering at me like I knew a good place to hide bodies.

Flipping the list over, I started making a grocery list. Canned peas. Cereal. Granola bars. Instant coffee. Done.

Great. Shopping lists are surprisingly short when you don't have much money to spend.

Sighing, I started over. Figs with brie. What else? Imported olives. Chocolate-covered pieces of candied orange. Motherfucking good and completely out of my price range.

Fucker just kept standing there. For all I knew, he could have put a gun to my head.

Regardless, there are matters of etiquette and I was loathe to point out the indecency of his behavior.

The door slammed open and two more students came in, fighting over which of them had the worse roommate this semester. I moved onto prepared foods-bean curd and pickled radish sushi. They sat down and the door slammed open again, staying open as more and more students trailed into the room.

With two minutes to go, I resigned myself to losing this particular battle of the wills and stood up. "Excuse me," I said.

No reaction. What-the-fuck-ever. I stepped around him and walked to the wall, tapping the touch screen. Lights: Muted. Projector: On.

I turned around and nearly walked into the statue.

"Uhh, hey," I breathed.

"Are you my TA?" he asked.

"Maybe," I answered. "I'm one of _the_ TAs. I don't know if I'll be yours."

"Who are the others?"

I pointed out Jake and Angela who were just coming into the room.

"Why are there so many?" he sounded truly disgruntled. Afraid that his tuition was going to waste?

"There are two-hundred and forty students in this class. Three TAs is the bare minimum." I shuddered to think what would happen if he found out that Angela and Jake weren't even getting their degree in period Dr. Volturri was covering.

Cue the devil herself. Dr. Volturri huffed into her microphone. "If _everyone_ would be so kind as to take a seat, we could begin." Who would have thought she would ever do me a favor?

I ducked around the statue and sat down, grateful that the seats on either side of me were already taken. Flipping open my notebook, I endeavored to ignore him as he shuffled past.

Not being one of those professors who spends the first day reading the syllabus aloud as if the students are all illiterate, Dr. Volturri launched into a lecture on the semiotics of erotic innuendo in political rhetoric. Oh you scamp Cicero, calling Mark Antony a prostitute.

Dr. Volturri only went two minutes over time. Fortunately, no one tried to leave early, suggesting that either a malfunctioning satellite had stopped everyone's watch or they somehow sensed the danger of turning their backs on a predator.

In any case, I wasn't gong to prolong my suffering. I left Jacob and Angela to dismantle the equipment, which was only fair seeing as how I'd set it up, and made my escape. Going upstairs, I made my way to a small classroom where my first discussion group of the semester was meeting. Shunning the table at the front, I slouched in one of the desks, shoved my headphones on, and took out a blank sheet of paper so that I could practice my Greek paradigms.

"How are you?"

I glanced up. He had followed me. Awesome.

I pretended that my music was so loud that I couldn't hear what he'd said. I pulled out one of the ear buds.

"Sorry?"

"How are you?"

"Umm, fine?"

My noncommittal answer seemed to appease him and he took the desk next to me. I hesitated, then replaced the ear bud. Who the hell wants to make idle chitchat with the teacher unless obligated by the clock?

He left me alone after that, so there must be a God after all. I made it as far as the aorist passive optative by the time class started.

I took off my headphones and grabbed a stack of syllabi.

"Hello," I said, grateful that almost all of the seats were now taken.

I handed out the syllabi and stopped at the front. "Dr. Volturri's syllabus explains how you will be graded and lists the assignments. My own syllabus offers hints for finding ancient sources and accessing the archives. I just want to add one thing. During discussion, I want you to be correct, funny, and vindictively critical of the texts we read, if not of each other. Think outside the box. If you don't like the direction I've taken, suggest another. If you disagree with me, do so. I want you to be able to repeat scholarly opinions, but I want you to develop your own opinions as well."

I was glancing around the room without making eye contact with anyone, but I couldn't help noticing that my friend from before had taken out a marker and was highlighting key points on my syllabus. And to think, I hadn't realized that it contained any key points.

I shifted on my feet. "Now, I'm not asking anyone's name because I assume half of you will drop. To help you make the decision, I want to provide full disclosure. I would prefer you come for the first five minutes of discussion and leave rather than have you stare at me blankly for fifty minutes every week. I prefer Plato over Aristotle, if only for aesthetic reasons, and I don't watch _The History Channel_, because it's boring. Battle stratagem leaves me cold, but as I realize futility, I will force myself to draw diagrams of the battles at Cannae and Cynocephalae. And yes, we will reenact hoplite warfare. It involves castration, so it might not be as fun as you think."

I checked my watch. Ten minutes and I was already done.

"On that happy note, go add/drop to your heart's content. If I don't see you again, I nevertheless would like to recommend _Sanjuro_ for your viewing pleasure."

I waved my hands in a clumsy farewell.

Most of the class stood, grateful to be dismissed so early. But my friend remained seated, studying the syllabus with pursed lips.

"I won't be on your roster," he said as I went to grab my backpack.

"What?"

"I haven't signed up yet, so I won't be on your roster."

"Ok." We locked eyes, my backpack half on as I paused in my flight.

"I have to switch my discussion group."

"Ok," I repeated, not knowing what else to say. Then like an idiot: "Good luck." _Please, please let the class be full by the time he makes it the Registrar._

I left before he could think of anything else to say, flying up the stairs to the Graduate lounge.

"It can't be that bad," Jake said when he caught me glaring at the microwave. "It's only the first day."

It wouldn't be fair to hold Jake's naïvete against him.

"What's wrong?" he pressed. "Dr. Volturri?"

I shrugged. "Who am I to hope for the kindness of dictators?"

"Who wrote that? Cicero?"

"Bella Swan."

"My, aren't we conceited?"

I didn't reply.

"So, I take it your first discussion went well."

"It was what it was."

"Aren't you the fucking Sphinx?"

"Do you even know what the Sphinx did?"

Jake waved a hand. "Do _you_ even know where Leonard Peltier's being unjustly incarcerated? Now tell me, who ruffled your feathers?"

I gave up. "Some student. It doesn't matter."

"That guy who was staring at you in the lecture? What? Did he follow you to discussion?"

I nodded. "It doesn't matter," I said again, counting down the seconds until my food finished cooking.

"Do you have any more classes today?" Jake asked.

"Just work," I answered. "And whatever I can get done on my prospectus."

"You should come to Newton's tonight."

"When have you known me to go to happy hour?"

"You did the other night."

"Special circumstances," I explained, tapping my foot and wishing the damn microwave would finish with my boxed pasta already.

"Well I think that acquiring a stalker on the very first day of class is a special circumstance. Besides, if he's under twenty-one he can't get in. You'll be safer at Newton's. He's probably already got your home address."

The microwave dinged, finally. I took my pasta out and sat down to eat. "You're so reassuring."

"It's my enduring optimism." He smiled.

I ignored him, shoveling a mouthful of undercooked pasta in my mouth as another student entered the lounge. Jake greeted her and they joked together about the new departmental restrictions on printing.

I squinted my eyes at the newcomer. What was her name? I was sure that I'd attended her prospectus defense. Jake seemed to be friends with everyone. I had always thought that our friendship was unique. It wasn't as if I was friends with just anyone. But maybe it wasn't at all unique to him.

Then again, if I really was such a cold-hearted bitch, why did I make exceptions for Jake and Angela?

If nothing else, they'd proved useful, Jake dancing with me at Newton's and Angela taking me to Breaking Dawn.

I chewed my pasta slowly, watching Jake. He looked around the lounge with mock-suspicion, whispering in a conspiratorial fashion that the Latin Americanists were getting twice as much paper as everyone else and that he planned to prove it.

She-of-the-easily-forgotten-name laughed.

Maybe my aborted plans for Masen were right up my alley. Maybe I went around using people all the time; I just never admitted it.

It certainly wasn't as if Jake got anything out of my friendship. Just a few stray bits of conversation here and there. I never spent time with him outside of school. The one time I saw him during happy hour, it was because I was out with the Cullens.

I stabbed the last of the pasta with my fork. How was it fair that the Cullens-of all people-were forcing me to question my misanthropy? If anything, misanthropes ought to be rewarded for sparing others the displeasure of their company.

I finished my pasta and stood, interrupting Jake's merry get-together with she-of-the-utterly-unimportant-name (her proposed dissertation topic had seemed rather trite). "I'll be there at six," I promised, and left.

I spent the next several hours shelving books in the library. When my shift was over, I changed out of my thrift shop couture into jeans and a t-shirt. I picked up my beloved brood of canine-companions, and took a leisurely stroll around the city, finishing just in time to avoid the rain.

Newton's seemed unusually crowded. Was it always like this? I clenched my jaw and looked around for Jake.

Fortunately, I spotted him right away. I was working my way through the crowd when a large hand stopped me in my tracks.

"What the fuck?" I heard myself say, my determination to improve my sociability clearly going only so far.

"Be careful, B, you could hurt someone with that," Emmett said, stepping out of the way of my backpack as I turned. "What the hell's in there?"

"Books," I answered. "The most lethal weapon known to man."

He looked at me critically. "You know they make these things called kindles now."

"Kindles are for posers."

I heard laughter behind Emmett. Rosalie was sitting at a table.

"You're funny, Bella," she said.

Was I? No one had ever said so before.

Rosalie waved a hand at an empty stool, pouring me a glass of amber-colored liquid from a half-full pitcher. I hesitated, then set my backpack carefully down on a stool, sliding onto the stool next to it. I had always liked Emmett. He'd left for college before I had moved to Forks permanently, so he was absent for my more disastrous moments. Emmett was probably the only Cullen with whom I still felt comfortable, his parents included.

"I would have thought you'd be all for saving a forest," Rosalie said handing me the glass she'd poured.

"Fuck Jonny and his treehouse," I answered, tipping the glass back and grimacing at the taste.

"You too good for tap?" Rosalie inquired.

I shook my head. "I don't drink often enough to have good taste."

Emmett corrected me. "Good taste comes easy. It's an appreciation for the truly awful that's hard to come by." He pushed a basket of chicken fingers in my direction and I raised a hand, wrinkling my nose. "No. Thank you. They reek. I don't know how carnivores do it."

He licked his lips. "We hide in the trees, lying in wait for unsuspecting vegetarians."

"Please. I have seen far too many Bruce Campbell movies for you to ever get the drop on me."

Emmett snorted. "Bruce Campbell?"

I looked at him in shock. "Are you questioning the reputation of the greatest zombie fighter who ever lived?" I sniffed. "There goes your wedding invitation." This conversation was surprisingly easy. What had I been so worried about? I could sit here for an hour, trading minor insults and imbibing disgusting beverages, and walk away knowing that I'd put a serious dent in my status as a standoffish prude. It wasn't even that painful.

"How is it that you're single?" Emmett shook his head in disbelief. "You'd be the perfect girlfriend."

I went a little wide-eyed at that, but managed to recover after a minute. "Thank you Emmett. I have often thought so." Which was only a lie in so far as it wasn't true, but I thought it sounded witty.

Rosalie huffed in mock irritation.

"Oh Rosalie relax," I urged. "You're gorgeous. When you look like me, the question isn't whether or not you're going to give head, it's how much."

"Is that so?" a velvet voice inquired behind me.

Good God in atheist heaven! What the fuck was he doing?

I wasn't in the least bit prepared to deal with Masen. Not yet. Not again. Not ever.

I had to admit, the other night at Newton's had been intentional-I'd known that he was coming. But the sightseeing and Breaking Dawn were complete accidents. And I'd decided to stop stalking him. It was only fair that he should stop showing up, right?

Emmett leaned towards me and whispered, "I texted him an invitation. Funny how he didn't want to until I told him you were here."

I glared at Emmett before I could stop myself, and he chuckled back. Wasn't he just hilarious?

_It doesn't matter. The plan is off_, I told myself. I wasn't going to start pretending to be someone else, even if Masen had shown up.

I took a deep breath, and looked at him.

He had sat down, far too close. The bar wasn't really _that _crowded. The perfect planes of the face that I hated mocked me with their symmetry. Would it kill him for his nose to be just a little out of proportion? He smirked at me. Ha! His smile was crooked.

I grinned despite myself, offering Masen the chicken fingers.

"You don't want any?" he asked, spying the full basket.

"Anorexia," I said. "It's not just for supermodels."

Emmett and Rosalie chortled. That's right, I was funny. I made people positively chortle with glee. I could do this. At least until I managed to come up with an exit strategy.

"You're not angry with me?" Masen sounded uncertain.

I felt my grin falter. I'd threatened to rip out his throat only the night before. How gauche. Of course, the cancellation of my plans rendered all that forced interaction-and the inevitable hostility that attended it-moot. Our reunion tonight was a chance occurrence, as random as any well-earned punishment should be. Masen deserved an apology. However poorly he may have treated me in the past, our recent dealings were solely my fault. I'd sought him out.

"Yeah, about that. Sorry?"

He didn't respond, studying me under hooded eyes. I wasn't surprised. I'd gone from ghost-of-high-school-past to lap-dancer to embittered-harpy. He was probably confused.

"Hey, Bells!" I heard Jake call.

Grateful for the excuse, I jumped up, leaving my backpack on the stool. "Be right back," I promised/lied, and made my escape.

I joined Jake at the bar and let him buy me a cider that was much more palatable to my humble tastes. I stood dutifully by his side as he entertained a coterie of incoming graduate students with stories of department parties gone awry, trying to remember if I was already supposed to know everyone's name. By the time he'd gotten to the non-denominational holiday party that turned into a anti-Christmas tree rally, I'd given up trying to recall names, and excused myself.

I didn't want to have to see Masen just yet, so I tried to melt surreptitiously into the crowd, and ended up circling the room, surprised to hear my name called out by more than a few groups of old students. I listened attentively as they took turns complaining about their professors and wishing that they were still in my discussion group. They were probably lying but I didn't care. Yes, I agreed, it would be much more fun if I were teaching the 400-level theory class. We'd watch _Rashomon_ and debate the value of a Hayden White reading of Tacitus' _Agricola._

By the time I'd made the entire circuit of the room, I thought that I'd done enough socializing for one evening and that no one could hold it against me if I left.

I walked back to the Cullens' table, pulling out my wallet. Emmett and Rosalie appeared to have left, leaving only Masen. Awesome.

"Perhaps I'm wrong about you," he said, watching me drop a couple bills on the table. "I was watching just now. You've blossomed."

"I haven't changed at all," I replied, trying to keep my tone light as I went to grab my bag. "I'm exactly the same. People like me for who I am."

"And you dislike me because I'm rich and handsome. It doesn't seem fair."

I struggled with the weight of my backpack. Why did I have to carry so many books? "Masen, I have very many reasons to dislike you that have nothing to do with your financial status or appearance. But so what if I do? You dislike me for lack the same."

Masen smiled. "But it's a circle. The beautiful don't have the luxury of being good. Corruption's inevitable. Whereas the ugly can be as good as they want."

What a jerk. I huffed, staggering a bit as I finally got the backpack settled. "Tragically ironic then, don't you think, that no one ever thinks well of Quasimodo."

"The ugly lash out. They're bitter."

I started turning away. "And the beautiful are already too corrupt to act with kindness?"

"Exactly."

"Whatever." I started walking towards the exit.

"Why're you leaving? Afraid of me?"

I stopped, pivoting on the balls of my feet to look back at Masen. He was staring down at his drink, as if he were totally disinterested in my reaction. Asshole.

I went back to the table. "I'm not afraid of anything."

Masen laughed. "Except of being called a coward."

I slid the backpack off again and sat down opposite Masen.

"Where're Emmett and Rosalie?" I asked.

"They needed to go. But I had to promise Emmett that there would be no lap dances since he didn't want to miss out, so you'll have to control yourself tonight."

Ignoring the last bit, I tried to guess why Masen hadn't left as well. He didn't seem the type to hang out in a place like Newton's. "Is Alice coming?"

He shook his head, watching me carefully. Then, leaning towards me, he whispered "I promise not to bite."

I tried not to flinch and failed.

He laughed.

Deciding that I would lash out, because apparently that's what ugly people do, I laced my fingers together and stared into Masen's eyes. "So tell me, how long have you been going to sex clubs and do you think it's because you're a doctor?"

I had to give Masen credit. A muscle twitched in his jaw, but otherwise he didn't seem shocked. He answered after a beat. "I don't see what being a doctor has to do with the decision to patronize…certain establishments."

I clarified. "Are you a doctor because you go to sex clubs or do you go to sex clubs because you're a doctor?"

"I don't see the connection."

I scoffed. "Please Masen. I know what you think of people. They're just meat to you. You don't respect anyone."

He had the gall to sound insulted. "That's what you think?"

I shrugged. "Tell me that I'm wrong. It seems to me that you wouldn't need to go to such…lengths…to experience satisfaction had you not come to think of sex in clearly physical terms. Like a doctor with a textbook. A vagina here, a mouth there. Not a whole person."

"It's sex, not vivisection."

"It's a sex club Masen. Not a quilting bee_. _You're there to have sex with a disembodied orifice. Stone Age Venuses-just breasts and cunts. No heads. No names. That must be your ultimate fantasy."

Masen studied me for a minute, not replying. "I'll answer your questions," he said at last, "when you tell me what you really have against sex."

I wasn't going to let him upset me. I answered truthfully. "I'm under the impression that sex involves talking to people. An activity for which I don't particularly care."

"If it involves talking, you aren't doing it right."

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes. Because I was fifteen again.

"You didn't mind talking to _them_," he gestured to the gaggle of students filling the bar.

"Them?" I blinked in surprise. "They're fluffy bunnies. And undergraduates. Not really a challenge."

"So you feel that you need to be challenged?"

A surge of anger had me suddenly leaning across the table. "Since I _don't_ feel," I hissed, "seemingly _can't _feel, and _that's_ the very problem, I would venture to guess that I need to be challenged." I straightened back up, recovering my composure. "Challenged intellectually, naturally. Somatic stimuli's hardly relevant."

"Somatic stimuli certainly isn't _ir_relevant," Masen choked. "And what do you mean you don't _feel_? You're not suffering any neuropathy impairing your sense of touch, are you?"

Why were we still talking about me? Surely Masen's proclivities were more abnormal than my own. I gestured noncommittally, "I'm sure it's entirely psychological. You, however, face a much larger problem."

"Me?"

"You. Habituation. How can you possibly continue to push the limits? It's not feasible. The only options is not to engage. I'm much better off."

"You're discussing things you can't possibly understand."

I laughed. "You can't convince me that you're right because I'm not already in your shoes? How does that make sense? If anything, my objectivity should be the ultimate barometer of the truth."

"But you have no means of acquiring the necessary data. Absence of sensation is equivalent to the absence of knowledge." Masen flicked a hand in dismissal. "Trying to hold this conversation with you would be like trying to explain sight to someone blind from birth."

"And subjectivity muddies your perception. You can't describe sight because you've always had it. You don't really appreciate it. Not the way a blind person would."

"Except that, according to your argument, once a blind person sees for the first time his objectivity is lost. So virginity's an exercise in fruitless ignorance."

"Unless sight's overrated. How can a person who can see appreciate the…the fact of blindness? To you, blindness is a negative. Absence in and of itself can have substance."

"Now you're the one who doesn't make sense. Besides, you've clearly decided that you want to _see,_ as you so inelegantly put it. Why else would you have gone to Breaking Dawn?"

"Research."

Masen sputtered. "Research?"

I quirked a shoulder. "One of my professors…can _see _alright. Wants everyone fitted out with x-ray glasses and thinks that I can't write about gender until I am too."

"How the hell does he know you can't see?" Masen sounded offended.

I glared at him. "_She_ doesn't know anything. Thank God. She's just one of those post-literary turn theorists who think that subjectivity's an absolute requirement for serious scholarship. You two would get along swimmingly."

"So you're going to Breaking Dawn as what? A night at the zoo with all of the deviants?"

"I don't think they're deviants. I just don't accept the validity of their arguments, at least not for myself."

He smirked. "You don't think I'm a deviant?"

I waved a hand in his direction. "You're a special case. But the rest of them?" I shrugged my shoulders. "Who am I to say?"

"I don't believe you."

"If I'm a true humanist then I have no choice but to accept a person's right to make stupid decisions. Even decisions that I think violate their own humanity."

"What is it that your professor objects to about your work? Specifically?"

I shook my head. "It's boring. You don't want to hear about it."

"I'm asking, aren't I?"

"Fine." I huffed. "Jean Baudrillard."

"Excuse me?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Jean Baudrillard. Desire, by definition, has no end. Can have no end. Satiation, absolute satisfaction, would mean death. Dissolution. The only thing that makes sense is to abstain. Not engage."

"Your professor's right. Jean what's-his-name is all wrong."

"At least I don't have to depend on anyone else to be happy. Your satisfaction is predicated on the existence of another person. Mine isn't."

"But you're not happy," Masen concluded.

"I'm not?" I looked at him in surprise.

"What are your pastimes? Bruce Campbell movies? Juvenile, don't you think?

He'd heard that? Well, so what? I might not be mature enough for adult companionship but I didn't want it either.

"I saw you before," Masen continued. "Fluttering around the bar. You were doing your best, but you weren't comfortable. And all of this nonsense with my family. How do you explain going to all of this trouble if you aren't lonely?"

I gaped at him. Of course he thought I was lonely. He didn't know anything about my fairy godmother's proposition. And I certainly wasn't going to enlighten him.

I decided to turn his question around. "So I'm lonely? Didn't you accuse me of wanting revenge the other night? Which is it? Because either I hate you or I don't."

He speculated for a minute. "Maybe you haven't made up your mind yet."

I tried to laugh. "Well I guess we'll never know then."

He reached in a pocket and pulled out a pen. "Write it down," he said, pushing a napkin towards me.

"What?"

"Your intentions. Write them down. We'll see in a few weeks if you're being honest."

"I will have forgotten you in a few weeks."

Masen glared at me. "That's an intention right there, isn't it? To forget me? Kind of hard to do if you're friends with my sister."

"Maybe we won't be friends two weeks from now."

"Which begs the question, why are you friends _now_."

I looked down at the napkin, taken aback by the turn in the conversation. No. I wouldn't let him do this.

"Why are _you_ here?" I asked, turning the tables.

"What?"

"Did I stutter? Why are you here? Why are you suddenly Mr. Popular, hanging out at the local bar?"

"Convenience. The Medical Center's right next to the University. This bar's equidistant from both of us."

I shook my head. "Bullshit. You've lived in Seattle just as long as me, but Alice told me that you never go out with Emmett. You've barely spoken to your siblings in five years. You never go home to see your parents. Why the sudden interest?"

"You expect me to answer that?"

"You expect me to divulge my intentions, why not you?"

Masen didn't reply, his eyes on the napkin.

I chided him. "Come on, just admit it. "Emmett owes you money and you want revenge for all the times Alice made you help her hem dresses. You have a complicated plan involving trained monkeys and Manolo Blahniks."

"I'll write it down," Masen replied, so softly I almost didn't hear.

"Pardon me?"

Masen cleared his throat and glanced at me. "Write down your intentions, and I'll write down mine. We'll write down our theories about each other, and give the napkins to someone for safe keeping."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

_Why not, indeed._ It was a simple question. A cruel reminder of all the lies I'd told thus far.

And it beat me. We stared at each other. I considered what it meant that I was refusing. Only someone who had something to hide would do so. I looked Masen in the eye, gazed into those jade-colored eyes, the memory of which had had me cringing no less than two weeks earlier, and I faltered. I broke eye contact, shying away. Maybe I hadn't changed that much since high school after all.

_ Fuck him_. I rummaged in my backpack for a pen and hunched over my napkin, betraying myself with a few lines of script written down on the back of a cheap napkin from a bar. So what if Masen knew the truth about my plan? I was done with subterfuge anyhow.

I finished and looked up to see Masen surreptitiously trying to see what I'd written. I quickly folded my napkin, unable to bear the thought of him learning the truth just that moment, or right in front of me where I would have to see his reaction. I wanted to be brave, but there were limits.

"To whom can we entrust such valuable pieces of evidence?" I asked.

He fixed me with a suspicious gaze. "Not you."

"I thought I had the moral high ground here, having avoided the corruption visited upon the cursed and beautiful."

"You're just moral by default. There's nothing to brag about there."

Not wanting to argue, I pulled a manila envelope out of my backpack and checked to make sure it wasn't holding any quizzes. Stealing Masen's already folded napkin, I put it in the envelope along with mine. Then, after I licked the flap and signed over the seal, I handed the envelope to Masen.

"We'll give it to Rosalie," he said, adding his name over the seal. "I take it you consider her an impartial observer."

I shrugged.

Masen started to hand the envelope back to me. "No, you can give it to her," I said. I reached for my backpack and started to stand.

"You're leaving?"

I nodded.

"Oh. Well, fine then. Until next time."

"Right."

I turned and started to leave, grateful to be escaping. _Stupid sentiment-to think that the Cullens were anything but casual acquaintances of a buried past._

I caught a glimpse of Jacob's frame as I left, regret stealing through me as I realized that I'd ignored him. Why had I let Masen distract me? I'd acted as if he was an exercise in logic, a puzzle to be solved.

It would be better if I didn't waver. I would never see any of the Cullens again.

**AN**

Unless you request otherwise, a review will be rewarded with a reply indicating WHAT THE NAPKINS SAID. Otherwise, you have to wait until December in the storyline.

Swan thinks that such base bribery is unethical, but Masen thinks it's strategy.

TOO ANNOYED TO KEEP READING? Don't be afraid to tell me so, and to let me know what, if anything, would keep you reading.

YES, CAPS ARE DISTRACTING.

This chapter wasn't CENSORED for SEXUAL content.

See? Very distracting.

'_I have seen the holy Maenads, the women who ran barefoot and crazy from the city…they let their hair fall loose, down over their shoulders, and…fastened their skins of fawn with writhing snakes that licked their cheeks.' - _Euripides, trans. David Grene and Richmond Latimore

'_The greedy man does no one any good, but harms no person more than his own self.' _Seneca quoting another writer, possibly Publilius Syrus, trans. Robin Campbell

'_I would never exchange my virtue for gold, for my virtue endures, while riches change their owner every day.' _- Solon, quoted by Plutarch, trans. by Ian Scott-Kilvert.

Antiquarian note: The nautical imagery in the L7 song at the beginning of the chapter is at least as old as Theognis of Megara (7th cent. BCE). I leave it for you to decide whether or not to follow up: To Google or Not To Google?


	9. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8 – A Sex Shop

'_Among the anatomical plates / Displayed along the dusty quays / Where many a dead book desiccates / Like an old mummy-among these / Sad diagrams to which the grave / Fantasy and ironic skill / Of some forgotten artist have / Lent a mysterious beauty still, / One sees (for thus mere nerves and bones / Were rendered life-like through his pains) / Digging like labourers, skeletons / And skinless men composed of veins.'_

-Baudelaire, "Skeletons Digging," trans. Edna St. Vincent Millay

EPOV

I watched her shoulder her backpack with a strained smile and walk away. I was no closer to understanding her behavior, and I was no better for having endured another night of _this_.

I started to crumple the envelope, then paused. _I could open it and have all my questions answered_. Or could I? Had she told the truth?

I folded the envelope and put it in my pocket.

Swan's affect on my behavior of late was at best annoying and at worst unacceptable. Hence my decision to accept Emmett's invitation and come to Newton's tonight. He'd interrupted a perfectly pleasant contemplation of the window in the break room in the hospital; I was imagining again the spiral pattern that the chair would make if I threw it against the glass, ripples of broken glass surging outward in slow motion, bubbling and billowing.

A fall from that height probably wouldn't kill me. I would have to go to the roof for that. Ten stories.

'_I'll push you_,' a voice in my head volunteered. I cocked my head to the side, wondering. My subconscious shouldn't have to volunteer to kill me when my conscious mind was so eager. But the voice was unexpectedly innocuous. It had a soothing cadence, like bells.

I sat up straighter. _Isabella Swan_. She would be more than willing to push me off a roof.

I considered broaching the subject with her. No doubt she had looked into the subject already. A creature such as herself couldn't have gone far in life without having considered suicide.

I remembered the window in the break room. Would Swan want to fly before she died?

I had hoped to answer such questions tonight, wanting to puzzle out some of the enigma that was Swan's presence in my life. But she had left before I'd even come close to starting.

Thus it was that I found myself sitting in a college bar, alone.

I noticed a gaggle of girls staring at me. _That which is close to hand is hardly so desirable as that which is out of reach_. I left before any of them could approach me.

*/*/*/*/

"_Gracias. Dios mio, gracias._"

I tried to extricate myself from the sobbing woman.

"_Mi niño_."

"He'll be fine," I lied.

_Swan would have endorsed your pessimism on this point_, I told myself. She was hardly the sort to be given to frivolity.

Or was she? All that bitterness might be a sham. She might want people to feel sorry for her.

_Next time I see Swan_, I decided as I handed the weeping _madre_ off to one of the nurses, _I'll get the truth out of her_.

I felt myself frowning, realizing the admission I'd just made. Was I really looking forward to seeing Swan again? That couldn't possibly be true.

Even if she made my family's company marginally more bearable.

Even if she had succeeded in distracting me from my own misery long enough to keep me out of Breaking Dawn-and hence off of society's blacklist-for an entire night.

Talking to her was oddly compelling. Everything Swan said was utter nonsense, but she never failed to entertain. I found myself goading her, wanting to know what would set her off next. She, in turn, seemed only to eager to put me in my place, claiming to be cognizant of things she couldn't possibly know.

A lingering moral sense-more a learned knowledge of textbook right and wrong as opposed to any innate belief-told me that I should regret my behavior towards Swan. But she was so bizarre, like a fantastic bird from myth suddenly discovered in the Brazilian rainforest. My interest was purely scientific. It hardly seemed right that such a creature such as she should exist. Much better that she be brought down to earth with the other mortals. And if I could be the one to do it, to catch her by the ankle and weigh her down, tear off a wing or two, then it was a challenge. I wanted it, and I had long since ceased to want anything.

I left the hospital soon after finishing with the grateful _madre. _It was late. The streetlights were on, but the sidewalks were surprisingly crowded. It was only by chance that I happened to see Swan.

She was walking in the opposite direction, down the other side of the street, a backpack slung behind her and books in her arms. I shook my head and kept walking, glancing back after a beat to see if she'd noticed me.

I was surprised to find that she was already out of sight. I spun, sprinting through the traffic and dodging the other passersby to follow her.

I paused at the corner, swinging my head around. Spying her on the next street over, waiting at a light, I took off again.

I yelled her name, but she kept walking. Was she ignoring me on purpose? A chorus of sorority sluts appeared in front of me, taking up the entire sidewalk with arms slung around each other. I maneuvered around them, shouting Swan's name again.

She was already to the end of the next block before I caught up with her. I grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop, out of breath and tired from my sprint. The sorority sluts jostled us as they passed, pushing Swan back so that she nearly slipped out of my reach. I dug my fingers into her arm and jerked, pulling her towards me. She stumbled into me and I seized her by both elbows, pulling her after me as I backed us into an alley.

I steadied myself, trying to catch my breath. Looking at Swan, I started to laugh. "Where were you-"

I stopped. She was looking at me, her eyes locked on mine. It was unnerving. I'd noticed how she tended to avoid eye contact with me thus far, her eyes skittering away if I looked directly at her. Unless she was angry. She had no qualms about staring me down whenever I said something to annoy her.

Her eyes now were dark. I wanted to ask her if she was alright but couldn't get the words out. Her eyes were so large.

My heart was hammering. I slid my hands up her arms to her shoulders. So soft. God, her arms were so soft. Like silk.

I slid one hand behind her neck, resting the other on her chin, trapping her.

Shaking, I lowered my mouth, hesitating an inch away from her lips. She smelled like honey and sunshine. I breathed in her scent, staring into her eyes.

Unable to take it anymore, I closed my eyes and turned her head to the side. I pressed my lips to the side of her mouth.

I shuddered against her cool skin as I heard a noise escape her mouth. I could have sworn that she cooed. I slid my hands back down her arms, and was confused by the sensation. I pulled back, looking at her arms.

Feathers. Her arms were covered in tiny feathers.

I felt lips moving against the skin of my neck, then a nip. Her mouth was on me.

I drew away, pushing her back. She nipped me again; it hurt. I held her in place and stepped back, but her arms merely slipped through my hands. Ghostly down tickled my skin as she receded. I reached out to grab her but she evaded me. She was shifting, changing. She stretched her neck out, a long white column, and something nipped at my shoulder. I reared back to look at her face. Where her lips had once been, there was now a beak, her large brown eyes studying me calmly.

I woke up uncomfortably aroused. I shouldn't have been surprised. Bestiality was probably just the next stage of my condition. But how was I supposed to incorporate it into my routine? I had difficulty imagining it: "How would you like me to tie you to a bed and fuck you senseless? You'd like that? You don't mind wearing a bird costume that I picked up from the Cirque du Soleil while I do it, do you?"

I was pitiful.

Gnashing my teeth in frustration, I heaved myself out of bed, resigned to blaming Swan.

Not that I wanted to fuck her.

I just wanted to understand her. To name her species. That wasn't so strange was it? If she was more like the rest of us she could hardly go around looking down her nose at everyone. I'd be doing a public service. She would probably decide that she was grateful for my efforts, happy to join the rest of us ordinary mortals here on the human plane of existence.

Right.

I hadn't seen her for a week. On more than one occasion, I'd nearly hit a mother with a stroller while driving and looking for Swan on the streets around the university.

Because that's just what my karma needed. A dead baby in a stroller.

I showed up to Newton's early, snagging a table and keeping an eye out in case Swan was already there. No such luck. Alice nearly jumped out of her skin when she walked in and saw me there. It took me a full minute to pry her arms from around my neck.

"Is anyone else here yet?" she asked.

I shook my head, leaning forward as I noticed the dog who Swan had danced with standing by the bar.

Alice said something.

"Hmm?"

"Edward, did you just growl?"

I shrugged.

Swan still hadn't appeared by the time Emmett and Rosalie arrived. I handed Rosalie the manila envelope.

"What's this?"

"Just a bet Swan and I have going. Keep it for us, will you?"

"Do I get a lap dance if I do?"

"Why not?" After all, the first one had gone so well.

Alice and Rosalie began debating the virtues of assorted forms of self-punishment-to wax or not to wax-and Emmett knocked back dollar drafts.

"Looking for someone?" he asked after a while.

I forced my eyes off of the door. "Someone from work might stop by," I explained.

"Of course. Or a certain graduate student might drop in."

"Whatever." I returned my eyes to the door, ignoring him.

"Hey, you didn't get another lap dance after we left last time, did you?"

"No."

"Did you fight with her?"

"On the contrary, our conversation was quite friendly."

Emmett snorted. I glared at him. "I am capable of carrying on polite conversation."

He raised his glass in a salute. "And I am capable of making this my last drink of the night." He drank it down in one long swallow, then grinned at me. "But it would go against my nature."

I looked away.

"So, what'd you talk about?"

"Really Emmett? Do you care?"

"Well it's either that or I start talking football stats and I know that you're for shit where that's concerned."

"She thinks doctors have to dehumanize people to do their job, which is bullshit." I was still dismayed by that particular line of argument. "We fucking save lives, don't we?"

"Oh yeah. Who?"

"Who what?" I was in no mood for Emmett's games.

"Who have you saved?"

"Orphans and babies, who the hell do you think? People. I save people. Just today, a woman came in with a knife wound to the chest because her husband had tried to kill her. She would have died without me."

"What was her name?"

I craned my neck so that I could keep an eye on the door, trying to see around a gaggle of interns who'd just walked in, still in their scrubs. "What?"

"Her. Name." Emmett spoke slowly if to a child. "What. Was. It?"

I noticed a woman who had slipped through the door without my seeing. Was it Swan? No, the hair was too short. Unless she'd had it cut-no, not her. "I haven't the slightest idea. My job's to save them, not set up their Facebook profiles."

"Doesn't sound very humanitarian to me. You don't even remember her name."

"It's better if we don't know the patients personally. Subjectivity can complicate treatment."

"So what you're saying is, you don't treat the patients like humans because it would make it harder for you to do your job."

"Exactly." I grimaced. "Emmett, I'd like to see you do my job and keep up your jovial façade. It's not as easy as it looks."

"Never said it looked easy. And just to be clear, you couldn't do my job either. But I'm better at mine than you are at yours."

That got my eyes off the door. "How do you figure?"

"I have a job and a girlfriend and a life and a family and somehow I manage to continue functioning. What have you got?"

"A job that has me working eighty hours a week."

"You should see me during playoffs. And dude, there's always a playoff. I even cover curling."

I blinked. "Curling?"

He nodded vigorously. I couldn't help laughing. "Hey," he admonished, "don't knock it until you've tried it. Or, don't mock anything that keeps your dear brother in the black, however ridiculous."

Resolving to save this bit of information up for later-_there's going to be a later?_-I returned to my watch of the door.

Alice and Rosalie decided to leave an hour later, disengaging Emmett from his pitcher with promises of a meal. They asked me to come, but I declined, claiming that I had work to do.

"Work?" Alice asked, eyebrows raised as she looked around the bar.

I confirmed my answer. "Work."

"Come on Alice," Rosalie said. "We've got an envelope to steam open."

I watched Alice dart out of the bar, Emmett and Rosalie a pace behind.

Swan's canine dance partner left shortly afterwards. Still no Swan in sight, I decided to leave before I started to look pitiful. Correction. More pitiful. I consoled myself with the knowledge that two women had approached me while I'd been waiting.

()o()o()o()o()o()o()o()o()o()o()o()o()

I was annoyed with Swan. If she wasn't going to come to any more of Alice's happy hours, then I wasn't going to either. Even spouting garbage, Swan was by far preferable to the doldrums of Alice and Emmett's stumbling thought processes. If nothing else, she was entertainment. A sideshow freak.

I had spent the past two days trying to devise a means to ensure that Swan came to the next happy hour. I considered just asking Alice for her number, but I didn't want Alice to know the extent of my interests-solely dialectical interests-where Swan was concerned.

I knew where Swan lived. Perhaps I could leave a note.

Because that wouldn't be in the least bit disturbing.

Fuck.

My preoccupation with Swan was an anomaly, I decided at last, and not to be indulged. Her mysterious behavior had had an exaggerated effect upon me because it was so irrational. With a few days separation, I would be back to normal. Best case scenario, I'd never see her again.

Thus it was with a newfound sense of ease that, it being my day off, I took the opportunity to seek out one of those few shops that happen to cater to my particular interests. I was in the market for something new and exciting to try at Breaking Dawn.

So there I was, innocently making my way down the sidewalk at noon on a Saturday when, not twenty feet from the entrance of the shop where I was headed, lo, what did my little eye spy through a storefront?

Swan.

It was just my luck that my favorite sex shop stood next to a used bookstore.

She stood in a narrow aisle of shelving, glaring over her shoulder at a man behind her. He didn't even notice her.

The poor tiny, inconsequential man. I was amazed that he didn't fall over merely from the force of her glare as his fingers trembled over the books in front of him.

A muscle tensed in Swan's jaw. She looked away, seemingly determined to peruse the titles she was facing. But I saw her determination falter as the little man tottered around and shuffled towards her. Swan's eyes narrowed and she moved an inch or two away from the man, raising a hand to the bookshelf in a territorial manner.

What had he done to offend her so horribly?

I had taken two steps towards the door before I managed to stop myself.

Going inside wasn't an option, I reasoned. But that didn't mean that I couldn't sit back and enjoy the show. I leaned against the side of an SUV, watching Swan.

The twig man finally drifted away, apparently carried off by a heavy draft, and the tension flowed out of Swan's face. She seemed to breathe more easily, taking first one volume, then another, off the shelf to examine. Her treatment of the books was almost reverential. No doubt there was something special about the bookcase Swan was perusing. That would explain her behavior towards the twig man.

But I watched as she moved to the opposite wall and was surprised to see the whole exotic dance repeat itself. This time it was a teenaged girl. Swan looked like she was going to rip out the poor girl's throat. And yet, I was certain that they hadn't exchanged so much as a word.

I watched as Swan's eyes bore a hole in the back of the girl's skull. When the girl bent over to retrieve a book from the bottom shelf, I thought Swan was going to hit her over the head.

Chuckling, I pushed my way off the SUV. Going inside to save Swan from lecherous old men might not have been an option, but going inside to mock her predations on shy teenagers was entirely acceptable.

A bell rang out as I pushed the door open. There were books stacked in piles in the entryway, well out of sight of the cash registers. The place clearly had so many books they didn't care if a few disappeared.

I passed the first row of shelving and turned to the right, expecting to see Swan, but the organization of the place was less than straightforward. I found myself meandering down aisles arranged haphazardly, bookcases set at angles rather than in parallel lines. I smelled cookies, coffee, and something musty-the books themselves, probably.

I was about to turn back around and retrace my steps when I rounded a corner and saw her. Swan was alone once more, a small smile playing across her lips as she ran a finger along the spine of a book, the fingers of her other hand curled around the stack of books in her arms. A rare ray of Seattle sunlight came through the window and cast a golden glow around Swan's shoulders, the red in her hair glinting. Dust motes spun in the air around her.

I smiled, sidling silently up behind her. I pretended to be fascinated by the selection of books in front of me, though to be sure I was more than a little interested in finding out what had Swan behaving so territorially. It appeared to be the philosophy section. Translations of Plato and Aristotle.

"What are_ you_ doing here?" I heard Swan hiss behind me.

I turned, a carefully manufactures expression of surprise on my face.

"Why, Swan, how nice to see you."

Her forehead was furrowed with the force of her glare. Her anger was so utterly incongruent, given our setting, that I couldn't help laughing. She actually stamped a foot.

I sobered up. "No," I said. "You're right. I can see why you're so worked up over _this_." I waved my hand towards the shelves. "I can only imagine that you've secured a singularly impressive haul." And before she could stop me, I pulled the load of books out of her arms.

"Un uh," I demurred as Swan tried to take the books back, clasping them to my chest and raising one over her head to read the title.

She made a wild grab for it and I swung it out of range. Well now, wasn't this fun?

She seized my arm and began pulling on my bicep for all she was worth.

"Give it back," Swan hissed, her feet leaving the ground for a minute as she hung onto me.

"Be good," I admonished.

She dropped her arms, stomping her foot again. There were patches of pink on her creamy cheeks, brown tendrils of hair snaking around her neck. Who could she hurt, really? It was almost laughable.

"I can't wait to find out what's got you so worked up," I joked as I turned the first book around so that I could read the title. I expected it to be the Marquis de Sade or Erica Jong. Why else would she be in such a fury to hide them?

It was Cicero's _Tusculanae Disputationes_.

"What is a Tusculanae?" I asked in confusion.

"Tusculum," Swan answered, snatching the book out of my fingers. "It's a textbook of Stoic philosophy."

A textbook? I wondered for a minute if Swan was lying, but why would someone make that up?

I handed the rest of the books back to her one by one, reading the titles before giving them up. A monograph on Plotinus' _Enneads_, a collection of essays by someone named Umberto Eco, and Roberto Calasso's _Ruin of Kasch_. I'd never heard of a single one. I held onto the last one a little longer, opening to a random page and reading: "The fabric of the articulated has lacunae. It eludes matricial narrowness, anguish (root: _angh_); it allows the membranes of the embryo to be abandoned; it introduces birth, since birth always involves a violent separation of the self from everything else, the severing of the last noose of Varuna: the umbilical cord."

Swan's chin went up as she snatched the last book from me, snapping it closed. She looked me right in the eye, as if daring me to retaliate.

"I don't get it," I admitted.

"Get what?" Her voice was careful, suspicious.

I nodded towards the books. "They look deadly dull. And you're acting like they're the dirty tell-all of Moses."

Swan rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't expect you to have heard of them. I wouldn't want them if you had."

I laughed again. Such pure unadulterated arrogance over such meager spoils.

Swan looked confused at my outburst, as if her behavior didn't make her the Mad Hatter at this particular tea part.

"Carry on," I ordered, pointing to the shelf behind her.

She cocked her head to the side, a wild bird wary of my next move.

"Stop bothering me already," I demanded, suddenly fascinated by the shelf I found in front of me. "I'd like some peace and quiet while I make my selections."

Her chest swelled with anger and I expected her to reply, she seemed to think better of it, having decided to cut her losses. Swan spun on her heel, tipping her head back to focus on the careworn volumes lining the top shelf of her chosen bookcase.

I leaned against the window and crossed my arms.

She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and tensed. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Watching the animal in her natural habitat," I answered nonchalantly.

Her eyes darted between me and the bookcase. "Don't do that."

The nervousness in Swan's voice was too much. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to.

"What is it that's got you so worried now" I glanced at the volumes in question and grinned. "Saint Augustine got your nether regions tingling?"

"Augustine was a prick," she retorted.

I leaned forward. "Maybe you like us dicks," I said huskily and she flinched.

"Fine," she replied a trifle shrilly. "Do what you want." She turned back to the shelf.

I watched as Swan's hand darted forward and froze in midair once, twice. Was she afraid to have me observe her selection? Huffing, she finally pulled a book off the shelf. She flipped through the pages slowly, the lines of anger smoothing away from her brow as she tilted her face away from me. I could tell that she was having difficulty balancing all the books in her arms as she examined her latest find.

"You could put them down on the corner of a shelf," I suggested.

"No," Swan replied imperiously. She hitched a shoulder, trying to block me out of her line of vision.

"You could put them on the floor at your feet. No one would make the mistake of thinking they were unclaimed."

"Absolutely not!" she snapped, slamming the book closed and returning it to the shelf. I glanced at the binding. _De consolatione philosophiae._ I glanced back at Swan. She was still looking at the book, her lips pursed.

"Why aren't you getting it?" I asked.

She sniffed. "A man on death row will convince himself of anything if it makes himself feel better."

"He was on death row?"

Swan sighed, nodding.

I watched her turn away from the shelf, then pivot back as if undecided.

"Books from Tusculum are better?" I inquired.

Squaring her shoulders, Swan turned her back on me, replying as she started to walk away. "Cicero was an ass, spouting knock-off Greek philosophy. But he's only five dollars and Boethius is twenty."

I pushed myself off the window to catch up with Swan. "Twenty doesn't seem like much."

She shrugged. "I can read them both online for free."

"Then why buy either."

She stopped, her eyes widened in surprise. "Online texts are hardly trustworthy. Besides, there is something to be said for the physical presence of a text. The imprint of the characters on the page. The delicacy of a worn leaf. The jagged edges of the older works." Swan closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "It's arresting."

I studied her for a minute. "Are you sure that these are books we're talking about?"

Swan's eyes snapped open. "Of course Masen. What did you think?"

I raised my eyebrows suggestively and she blushed.

"Just books," she repeated.

"Riiight," I drawled.

Swan moved forward briskly, trying to distance herself from me. Not bloody likely.

I clapped my hands and rubbed them together as I caught up with her. "Where to next?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What collection of salacious debauchery do you intend to expose me to next? I have to warn you, I'm new to this book porn of yours, so you have to be gentle."

"Shh!" she hissed, making me snicker. She glanced from side to side, ensuring that I wasn't overheard.

I leaned close enough to whisper in her ear. "Relax. It's not like it's a sex shop."

Swan reared back, exhaling slowly through her nostrils. You would think this _was _a sex shop. Maybe it was-for her.

I swung my arm in an arc across the path in front of us, inviting her to lead the way. Swan hesitated, obviously weighing the value of the prizes she had yet to secure against the knowledge that I would be observing the hunt. The books won.

I followed as Swan marched purposefully down the length of the store, a long black peasant skirt swirling around her legs. She paused at the end of a row, peering surreptitiously around the corner. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from laughing out loud. You would think it was sell-a-secret night at the Russian Embassy, the way she was sneaking around.

I was as quiet as a church mouse, practically tiptoeing behind Swan lest she accuse me of blowing her cover. Looking again to ensure that we were alone, she settled in front of a bookcase labeled _History – European._

"Anything _tempting_?" I inquired in a low tone.

"It's all just fine," she whispered back obscurely.

I nodded as if I understood, squinting at the titles. Goths-Franks-Merovingians. That guy from _The Matrix_? I shook my head.

"This isn't supposed to be here!" Swan complained in an outraged whisper. She pulled a volume off the shelf and almost walked into me. I suppose that I was standing rather close.

"What's with you?" she demanded.

"Nothing's _with _me," I grumbled, shuffling out of her way.

Swan set the book on a shelf at the end of the row, returning to her original spot. A few minutes passed without her making a selection.

"Do you have to stand so close?" she huffed.

I realized that I'd sidled back up to her. Delighted at her discomfort, I couldn't help goading her. "Do I make you nervous?"

"Yes. No. I just don't" -she moved three inches to the right-"see why you insist on stalking me.

"Stalking?"

She had to lean over into the space she'd just vacated to read the titles on the books. "Stalking. Exactly."

"I'm hardly stalking you. I just-" What _was_ I doing? "If anything, you're the one stalking me, following my family around. I'm just gathering data so that I know what I'm up against."

"You can gather data from over there." Swan waved a hand behind her.

"Why can't I stand next to you? Don't you like people, Swan?"

"No." She straightened up. "No, I do not."

Grabbing a volume at random, I offered it to her. "What about this one? It's so. _Big_."

"You're not funny," she chastised, snatching the book away from me and returning it to the shelf.

"Come on Swan. Can't I _tempt_ you with anything?" I smirked.

"I _hate_ you," Swan spat in a low tone.

"Oh, so you finally show your true colors. What happened to the past is the past and let's all be friends?"

"This isn't the past. This is now." Swan turned her back on me, standing at a right angle to the bookcase so that I had to look over her shoulder to monitor her selections. "What about that one?" I asked into her neck so that her hair stirred with my breath.

Swan shuddered, her knuckles turning white around the book she was currently perusing. "You're a horrible person, you know that? Do I go to Breaking Dawn and critique your choice in women?"

"You could. I could even get one of them to give you a lap dance." I paused. "That might actually be a good idea. Could be you really do swing the other way and just don't know it."

Swan spun around and faced me. "What would it take to get you to leave me alone?"

She was practically crackling with hostility. If I didn't detest her so much, her tantrum might have been almost adorable.

There was absolutely nothing I could think of that would get me to leave just at that moment.

"There is absolutely nothing I can think of that would get me to leave just at this moment," I told her.

I think she wanted to slap me. One hand had balled itself into a fist. I watched as Swan deliberated, and was disconcerted to see a calculated gleam enter her eyes. "I'm going to pick something up in a shop after this," she confessed. "The shop's on this block. Then I'm going to dinner. Asian fusion. You can come with me. I'll talk to you as much as you want. I'll answer all of your questions. You can walk or stand or sit as few as five inches away from me the whole time. Five inches. Just give me fifteen minutes with your mouth shut and ten inches of breathing room."

"Fifteen minutes?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"Ten inches?"

"At least ten inches."

Taking mercy on her, I gave her a full eleven inches.

Sighing with relief, Swan returned to her perusal of the shelves, running a finger along the spines of the books. I wanted to mock her for moving her lips as she read, but remembered our agreement and bit my tongue. I could tell that she was fighting with herself, coming back to five or so titles a few times, grabbing one of them at last and flipping through the pages, clearly feeling rushed. Her forehead scrunched in anxiety. She put the book back on the shelf and sped away to the end of the row.

I followed her as she went into a tiny alcove, above which a sign read _Special Collection_.

Swan paced a quick circuit around the alcove as I watched from the door. She crossed in front of me and started over again, apparently scanning a different row this time. It occurred to me that she was moving too quickly to be able to read the titles. It wasn't lost on me that her haste was largely due to my presence, but as she'd had a similar effect on me the last four times we'd met, I decided it was only fair that she be getting a taste of her own medicine.

I was jarred out of my introspection by Swan's startled cry. She pulled a volume off the shelf, handling it gingerly, no mean accomplishment as she was simultaneously balancing an armload of books.

I watched her run a finger down the cover before she opened to the title page. My jaw dropped at the sound of a soft feminine groan, and I leaned forward, straining to hear. There it was again. Swan was moaning over a fucking book. It was too much. She carefully went through a few pages before sighing ruefully and returning the book to the shelf. Cracking her neck, Swan pivoted towards me. "We can go now."

"What about that one?" I asked. "Don't you want it?"

A longing expression came over her face as she glanced over her shoulder. "It's a hundred dollars."

I stepped forward. "What is it?"

"A desire not to be indulged."

I had never heard of such a thing. Moving around her, I pulled the volume down, opening to the middle. "What is this? I don't even recognize this language."

"It's German."

"You read German?"

She rolled her eyes. "I read German, French, ancient Greek, Latin and Japanese."

"Japanese?" I gawked at her.

"It was required for my minor field."

"You couldn't pick a minor field in American or British Studies?"

Swan raised an eyebrow. "If I was particularly lazy, I suppose I could have."

I ignored that and glanced back down at the book. Flipping through a few of the pages, I was surprised to see a series of colored plates. Frescos and mosaics decorated almost every page. That was probably why the book cost so much. It must have cost a fortune to publish.

I turned to leave the alcove.

"Aren't you going to put the book back?" Swan asked.

"I'm buying it," I replied.

"Do you read German?" she demanded, hurrying to keep pace with me as I marched towards the registers.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Translate the first paragraph out loud," she challenged.

"Really Swan? Are we stooping that low?"

"You don't know German."

I handed the book to the sales clerk and smirked at Swan. "Not a word."

Not surprisingly, she became even more distraught. "What're you going to do with that book, Masen?"

"Hmm," I pretended to think. "Paper mache?"

Swan cried out in dismay. "That's not funny."

I took my bag from the sales clerk and gestured for Swan to pay for her own books. "It's pretty hilarious actually. You're really scared. What d'you take me for? A book burner?"

She scowled at me and handed her books over. I was impressed that she let the salesclerk handle the precious items.

She behaved herself until we were outside of the store and on the sidewalk.

"You can go now," she told me. "You don't have to tag along if you're bored."

"That's ok. I'm having fun. Where to next?"

Swan gazed at the street, considering her options. As if she'd really try to outrun me. "Fine," she sighed. "I don't care. You don't bother me."

"Keep telling yourself that darling."

Not replying, she started towards the entrance of the shop next to the bookstore.

"Where're you going?" I asked in surprise.

She squinted at me. "Inside." She had the door half open.

"Here?"

"Yeah. Here." Swan pushed her way in, leaving me to gape on the sidewalk.

I was in an alternate universe. That was the only explanation.

Swan had just walked into a sex shop.

**AN**

I stopped recommending stories at the end of chapters because it occurred to me that it was the height of arrogance to imagine that my opinion mattered. Now, it's occurred to me that it's the height of arrogance not to give due credit to those authors whose work has been so entirely moving, or so frustrating, that they've caused me to experience visceral reactions. Consider, for instance, "**Heat of a Blue Flame**," by **107yearoldvirgin**. It's physically difficult for me to read this story. I skip paragraphs, and have to force myself to go back and reread them. This Edward is so controlling, and so cruel in his efforts to evoke various responses from Bella. He plays her, and she lets herself be played. He is the consummate Edward from Eclipse, the one who was missing from the movie, who sent Bella into the arms of his enemy knowing that this show of magnanimity was a lie. And the Bella in 107yearoldvirgin's story gives so much of herself away, opens herself in ways that _hurt_ me to witness. I could never be so vulnerable. It is a subjugation almost equivalent to that seen in "The Training" or "Master of the Universe," and yet this Edward doesn't even have to touch Bella. To be sure, the differences between the Edwards of "The Training" and "Master of the Universe" have always struck me as particularly telling. The Master-of-the-Universe (let's call him by his right name, shall we) treats his Bella like a child. As does the Edward of "The University of Edward Masen" (at least at times) and "Deconstructing Dracula," and that is the real subjugation active in this discourse, not the rather minor inclusion or exclusion of handcuffs. Don't get me wrong; I'm in no way criticizing any of these stories or their authors. If nothing else, the violence of my reaction to the Master-of-the-Universe is a credit to the writing. These aren't the Edwards from "The List" or "The Training." Just because you let a man tie you to a bed doesn't mean that you let him treat you like you're five years old when the two of you are walking down the street. Thus, it is disconcerting to consider the possibility that "The Worst for Weather" Edward may in fact be most true to the vampire of canon. Meyers shouldn't be surprised that people have taken her Edward here. Not for nothing are fully independent feminists shocked and amazed to find themselves addicted to _Twilight_. Meyers' Edward is, in some ways, the very definition of what feminism has worked so hard to overthrow. Seeking an explanation for his popularity, I wonder if the attraction (by which I do mean _my_ attraction) to this Edward reflects a more or less conscious realization that an increase in women's strength wasn't meant to be matched by a corresponding decrease in men's strength. Cary Grant was man enough for Katherine Hepburn not because he folded, but because he took her shit and gave it back just as good. Such issues of domination and subjugation are of special interest to me because, in case you haven't already guessed, my Edward has a marked tendency towards domination. And my Bella? She is not unlike those feminists who find themselves inexplicably drawn to a certain vampire they should rightfully despise. She has been hurt, and if I were a better writer, or braver, I would have gone into the wonderful detail that is offered up in "Hit by Destiny." But as I am only me, I must reconcile myself to attempting to show that Bella's silence is in and of itself a reflection of her pain. The greater her silence, the greater her pain. From various reviews, I've decided that I've been less than successful in this attempt thus far, but I hope to improve in chapters to come. So, because 107yearoldvirgin succeeds where I fail, please consider reading "**Heat of a Blue Flame**." And if you've already read it, then by all means, your own reading-and writing recommendations-are more than welcome, because it's also occurred to me that my aversion to requesting reviews (after all, we can't all write ANs as witty as those from "The Blessing and the Curse") is another kind of arrogance.

Disagree with me – about either Edward or feminists? Please, I want to hear your opinion. What do you think of those fanfictions where Edward purchases Bella? Clearly, my Bella is not disinterested in the topic of prostitution, given her mother's own dalliance in the profession. Personally, I have extreme difficultly wrapping my head around it, but I am in favor of decriminalization. Where do you stand?

Antiquarian note: One can't help but wonder at the ancient Greco-Roman fascination for bestiality. Of course, it would be nice if we could tell ourselves that the fathers of reason were just joking with all of that cross-breeding. But what are we to do with evidence like _The Secret History_, in which a certain empress is accused of doing very inappropriate things with a goose? Oh Leda, why?

And for those of you who are interested in printed reading material, _The Tusculum Disputations _is entirely readable (and online), even if Cicero's Stoicism seems rather desperate (his daughter had just died). Plotinus' _Enneads _are so daunting that I never finished, but the Western world would be utterly bereft without Neoplatonism. Instead of reading, consider Googling Chartres Cathedral. Then again, I've never finished Boethius' _Consolation of Philosophy_ either, so I must be a bad Neoplatonist. Umberto Eco's scholarly work is incomparable, but if you are not interested in the intricacies of semiology, there is always _Foucault's Pendulum_, predating Dan Brown by at least a decade and certainly excelling where Brown disappoints (no, I don't care about offending Dan Brown). Finally, Masen would in fact love Roberto Calasso but it's not for everyone. You have to harbor an appreciation for ambiguity and a well-turned, if often incomprehensible, phrase. Hmm, maybe that's where I get it from, at least the incomprehensible part.

The Roberto Calasso quote was translated by William Weaver and Stephen Sartarelli.

The reference to Bella's honey and sunshine smell is from Breaking Dawn. I left out the lilac out of spite; it turns my stomach.

This chapter hasn't been censored.

And this has been a long author's note, but the others have largely consisted of identifying the sources of quotes, so I don't feel guilty, especially as you have no one but yourself to blame if you've decided to read this note all the way to the end.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 – Stepped into the Back

"The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real…His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and tomorrow keep him alive…Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie."

- Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, quoted, interestingly enough, from the Wikipedia entry for Medusa

BPOV

There was a space around me then, a narrow zone colonized by little pockets of peace that insulated me from everyone else. Oh sure, there might be a sally now and then from a precocious youth seeking to test the strength of my walls, but such efforts were all for naught. I was impregnable.

Until Edward fucking Masen stormed the ramparts.

I'd been relishing the return of my habitual solitude. All of the stress of late had one source and one source only, the effort to be something that I was not.

Consider the case of Person X: She was awkward at best. Antisocial at worst. A lover of books and loved by them in return, for all that they were inanimate and dead. Who was this person to mix about with others, disrupting their lives as much as her own? She should have stuck to her own kind, for it was a mistake to entertain ideas above her station.

'_He would have been a citizen long before but for the shame of his mother, who is a whore._' And who was I, if not the daughter of a whore? But that didn't mean that I ought to become a whore myself. So what if I was poor and exhausted from overwork? Better that I walk dogs and tutor rich brats than that I prostitute myself to the likes of Edward Masen.

I reconciled myself to reality. I finished another draft of my prospectus, Dr. Volturri be damned, and sent it off to my committee. I met with each of my discussion sections and added two new students to my French tutorial.

I tried and failed to contact a certain fairy godmother so that I could tell her that our "partnership" was at an end. But I was resolute-I was done with playing games with the Cullens.

My father sent me a birthday card, and I deleted another email from my sister without reading it.

I ignored phone calls from Alice Cullen and removed her number from my contacts.

Jacob and Angela encouraged me to return to Newtons but I demurred, citing a need for sleep, which was true.

And I was content.

Content.

Before this nonsense with the Cullens, the placid acceptance of _melancholia _had always left me more than tranquil. So why had I suddenly begun to question that? I woke on the morning of my birthday determined to ask little from life. _Who needs to be _happy_?_

I was…apathetic. It was enough.

I spent the morning at an overpriced coffee bar imbibing the sickeningly sweet _soma_ that was my addiction, indulging myself for once.

Then, carried away perhaps by the heady mixture of sugar and determined apathy, I proceeded to let myself do three other things I _never _allowed myself:

I stopped working.

I stopped studying.

I stopped worrying.

I walked-no _strolled_-down the street, pausing in front of shops to admire the merchandise on display. I stood outside of a small gallery for a full twenty minutes gazing at a tiny bust, fascinated by the appearance of the clay, seeming to drip from the form.

I felt decadent in my indolence.

Breathing a sigh of relief as I entered my favorite bookshop, I felt stress that I didn't realized I'd been carrying melt away. Here was peace. Here was, dare one say, happiness.

I was alone.

Then the encroachments began. Red-headed bastard stepdaughters and elderly men feigning innocence, acting as if there was some sort of camaraderie to the appreciation of literature. _Please, it's every man for himself_.

I attempted to control myself. It wouldn't do to make a scene. I endeavored to surreptitiously repel attempts to acquire those books in which I might be interested, all without losing my temper.

I was succeeding too, until Masen walked in.

'_Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit._'

I felt stress flood back in, muscles screaming as they tensed. _One can bear only so much_, I thought. But I couldn't let him know how much he was affecting me. He was beneath me, unworthy of my concern.

Motherfucker.

And then he bought the book.

I was going to kill him. It had happened before, collectors slaying each other for the possession of a rare tome. That was a reasonable defense, wasn't it? _'Your honor, he didn't deserve that book. It just couldn't be allowed._' I was going to go to prison, where I'd tutor the inmates in Latin and Neoplatonism and we'd compose treatises against the injustices of tyranny.

I left the shop, my temper barely held in check. Masen was following eagerly behind, like a puppy with a new toy. I wished someone would kick him already.

He was fucking with me. That was the only explanation. He was hoping to trick me into some more ridiculous posturing, but I was done playing with him. The bullshit thus far could serve as my penance for reinserting myself in the Cullen's lives, but there were limits. I wasn't going to let him fuck up the rest of my day.

I went into the sex shop, ignoring the ass behind me. I told myself that I didn't care that he was there.

I went up to the counter, not sparing a glance for any of the merchandise.

"Hello," I greeted the heavily made-up blow-up doll at the register. "I have a one o'clock appointment." I was a picture of calm. I might have been requesting a meeting with the Queen, and all while standing next to a display of specially flavored lubricants.

The blow-up doll popped her gum and clicked on a laptop next to the register. "Name?"

"Isabella Swan."

"Yeah, Eric's in back. You can go on."

I pushed away from the counter and heard the blow-up doll address Masen. "You with her?"

Not bothering to pause, I hitched a shoulder. "He can come." Because I didn't care.

I hesitated at the curtain for a just second, suddenly anxious over what awaited me on the other side.

But Masen was just a behind and I couldn't afford to let him see me afraid, could I?

Not that I cared what he thought.

I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the back.

**AN**

I've had a wretched week and so haven't had as much time as I would like to work on this chapter. I can't in good conscious upload the rest of it without further work. But, as consolation, reviewers will be rewarded with Bella's reason for visiting the sex shop…

Recommendation: **Wayfarer by gallantcorkscrews**, because Meyer's Edward got off far too easily, and I grew up on Viking _Eddas_ and Joss Whedon scripts, both of which recognize that forgiveness must be earned.

Quotes:

'_He would have been a citizen long before but for the shame of his mother, who is a whore._' Plutarch on Pericles' son, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert

'_Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit._'This is Athena who wounds you, Athena who sacrifices and takes vengeance via your wicked blood. - Virgil, translation mine.


	11. Chapter 10

I don't own Twilight.

Chapter 10 - Research to Do

"You hit me once / I hit you back / You gave a kick / I gave a slap / You smashed a plate / Over my head / Then I set fire to our bed / My black eye casts no shadow / Your red eye sees no blame / Your slaps don't stick / Your kicks don't hit / So we remain the same / Blood sticks, sweat drips / Break the lock if it don't fit / / A kick in the teeth is good for some / A kiss with a fist is better than none / I broke your jaw once before / I spilled your blood upon the floor / You broke my leg in return / So I sit back and watch the bed burn"

Florence and the Machine, "Kiss with a Fist"

BPOV

"I never imagined you as a back-door woman, Swan."

"I'm surprised that you imagined me at all," I replied archly as Masen followed me into the back of the shop.

He laughed. "Come now, admit it. You've imagined me all kinds of ways."

"Hardly."

"Exactly. _Haaaard_ly."

"You're a pig."

"And you're a prude."

"Am I interrupting?" Eric asked with a touch too much amusement in his voice.

"Not at all," I blurted, grateful for the interference.

We were the only customers in the back of the shop. Reclining chairs were set up at odd intervals, with mirrors covering the ceiling and one entire wall.

Eric grinned at me, the expression seemingly out of place on his pockmarked face. "Hey Beautiful."

Did he really have to say that in front of Masen? I cleared my throat and forced myself not to reveal the degree to which I was intimidated by the situation.

I made myself look Eric dead in the eye. Except for his face, every visible piece of his skin was covered in tattoos. Not even his shaved scalp seemed to have escaped unscathed.

"Hey," he said, nodding in Masen's direction.

"Hey," Masen replied stiffly.

"Going to introduce us?" Eric inquired.

"No," I guffawed and they both looked at me. I shook my head. "I mean, he doesn't matter," meaning Masen.

Masen snorted.

"You don't," I told him.

He muttered under his breath and I ignored him.

"Have you finished the designs?" I asked Eric.

"Eager much?" Eric replied, chuckling.

"I really want to do this," I answered, taking a deep breath and placing my purchases from the bookshop on one of the chairs.

He nodded, picking up a folder. "Alright, so I had a couple of ideas, but I want to make sure that we still stick to your basic plan."

"Wait," Masen interjected. "You're here for a _tattoo_?"

You would think that I was proposing to suck face with a werewolf

"Yes, Masen. A tattoo."

"What the fuck for?"

"Uh, because I want one?" I sounded like a bratty teenager.

Masen burst out laughing.

"Fuck you," I glared at him. Turning towards Eric, I resolved to pretend that Masen wasn't even there. "What have you got for me?"

Eric held the folder towards me and I felt myself blushing. He'd sketched a series of figures, all nude. They were clearly supposed to represent me, although they showed no more than the torso. It was uncanny how accurate they were. Down to the cup size.

Masen started coughing behind me. Great.

"Umm," I forced myself to ignore the _canvases_ and concentrate on the actual _tattoos_, trying not to be obvious as I shifted the pictures out of Masen's line of sight.

Two of the drawings displayed discreet, perfectly respectable approximations of the tattoo that I'd requested. A serpent twisted across my stomach in one, the head rising to just between my breasts. The snake in the other one was much smaller, curling into a neat coil right over my ribcage.

The other two sketches were far more daring, with snakes shown wrapping around my torso, disappearing behind my back and reappearing around the other side. Suitable snake companions for a misbegotten maenad, driven from the city in her madness. Ulalale.

I swallowed, a burning sensation rising from my chest to the back of my throat.

"You have got to be kidding me." Masen snatched one of the drawings out of my hands. "You're not going to get these."

"Why the fuck not?" I demanded, trying to retrieve the picture that had been so rudely taken from me.

"What the hell would your teachers think of this?"

"Well, they're not ever going to find out, are they? It's not like the tattoo's going to be brazened across my forehead."

"Is this part of some midlife crisis?" Masen held the paper out of my reach, studying the sketch of my naked torso.

"I don't know Masen. Is that club of yours part of some midlife crisis?"

He glowered at me. "That _club_ is who I am. _This_," he shook the picture, "is a little girl playing at grown up games."

Eric surreptitiously relieved Masen of the sketch and handed it back to me. "_This_," I said, "has nothing to do with you. And you know nothing about me."

We were interrupted by the sound of boxes falling somewhere in the front half of the store. "Eric!" the bubblegum princess screeched from the other side of the curtain.

"Just a minute, kids," Eric said before leaving us together.

"Fine," Masen hissed at me. "Fuck yourself up. See if I care. At least I can make sure he uses clean needles."

I bristled at his rudeness. "Please. Don't be tacky."

"It's tacky to be cautious about getting a tattoo?"

"Do you always wear a condom?" I glared at him. "Thought so," I concluded when he didn't reply.

"It's not exactly the same thing."

"Oh, believe me, I know it's not." I turned my attention back to the sketches.

Masen sighed. "At least get something normal like a flower or a ladybug." He continued under breath, "You don't need to get a phallic symbol etched into your skin just because you're never going to let a real penis anywhere near you."

"Asshole, I can hear you when you talk out loud, you know."

"Yeah, well you're not listening are you?"

"Why should I?"

"If your father's not around to stop you from doing something stupid, then I'll just have to step in."

"Really? You're my father? Because I've never given my _father _a lap dance."

Masen feigned shock. "Leave Electra out of this." Registering my surprise, he went on, "Yes I do know _some_ history. I'm not a complete idiot."

"Ha!"

"You-" Masen was cut off by Eric coming back through the curtain.

"Made up your mind?" Eric asked.

"She's still deciding," Masen announced for me. "But I've got my eye on one of these designs." He gestured to the framed designs on one of the walls. "Any advice?"

"What are you playing at Masen?" I demanded.

He waved a hand at me dismissively. "Do you mind? I'm trying to have a conversation. Pick your design already."

I glowered at his back, watching as he and Eric huddled in front of a series of tattoos based on cartoon characters. They were whispering.

_Fuck that._

I looked back down at the tattoos that Eric had designed for me. I knew which one I wanted, but was worried that it would cost more than I could afford.

"Made up your mind yet?" Masen mocked. "Or still trying to get out of it?"

I wanted to deck him. "I've made up mind," I snapped.

"Alright then, which one is it?"

"Not that it's any of your-"

"Get on with it already."

"This one." I handed Eric the sketch the smaller of the two snakes shown wrapping around a torso.

Eric whistled. "That's gonna look sexy, Beautiful."

"Right," Masen said sarcastically. "How much does it cost?"

"Masen!"

"What? I'm just looking out for your interests."

"Three hundred," Eric replied.

"Only three hundred?" I asked.

"What do you mean 'only three hundred?'" Masen sounded shocked. "That's a rip off."

"It's already discounted," Eric defended himself.

"'Cause you're just that philanthropic. Bullshit. This is premium virgin flesh you'll be marking up here." Masen gestured to me. "You should be paying _her_."

I tried to interrupt.

"Two hundred," Eric haggled.

_What?_ I was sure that even three hundred wasn't enough.

"Done," Masen decided.

What was happening?

"But it's a pretty intense tattoo. She's going to have to get a smaller one first, so that I can gauge how will she'll do with a larger one."

Masen nodded, as if the decision was his. He looked at me. "So what do you want to get?"

"What?"

"For the practice tattoo. Jesus, Swan I thought you were supposed to be a genius. Try to keep up."

"I need to get a practice tattoo?" I asked Eric.

"Am I talking to myself?" Masen inquired. "That's what I just said."

Eric nodded.

I was flustered. Masen's interference was too distracting.

"What about a flower?" Masen suggested.

"No."

"You could get my name tattooed over your heart."

"No!"

"What about a tramp stamp?"

"Masen!"

"What?"

"Fucking stop already. Give me a chance to think."

He cocked an eyebrow. "By all means, please _think_ about what you're doing."

I looked at Eric. "I can get any tattoo?"

"Well, only a couple of inches big. That's the point."

"Ok." I turned towards my purse and started to pull out a piece of paper and a pen.

"Aren't you going to pick a design from the wall?" Masen asked.

"Don't need to." I began writing on the paper.

"What's that?" Masen tried to see what I was writing. He was like a goddamned kid.

"Greek."

"What's it mean?"

"It means that you should mind your own fucking business."

"I find that highly unlikely."

I shrugged, handing the paper to Eric. "Is that alright?"

Eric smiled. "Sure. That'll be just fine. Where do you want it?"

I turned so that Masen wouldn't see, and lowered the top of my skirt a couple of inches, exposing my left hip. "Right here."

"Sounds good. Black ink?"

"Yes please."

"Twenty-five bucks."

I nodded.

"I have to make up a tracing of this, and then we'll get started," Eric explained.

"Ok."

"Have a seat."

Eric left Masen and I alone again. Masen shoved a receipt at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Write the words down on the back this," he ordered.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"If you don't write it down yourself, I'll just write it down while you're getting your tattoo."

"I don't care."

"I don't believe you."

"So what? And why do you care anyways?"

"The behavior of the elderly virgin is of avid interest to me. It's so rare to come across one in the wild. Some people don't even believe they exist."

"You're an asshole."

"Do you think I could write an article on you? _The New England Journal of Medicine _would publish it."

"Want to be castrated?"

"Not today."

"Then shut the fuck up."

Eric came back in then. "So what do you think?" He showed me a piece of tracing paper with the Greek written in my handwriting down the page.

I liked it. A lot. "Looks good."

"Awesome." He opened a few drawers and pulled stuff out, setting up a tray. Eric needed to shave my hip, so I stood in front of him with the corner of my skirt pulled down. I made sure that I had my back turned towards Masen, but he just walked around Eric so that he could observe the proceedings. Perv.

"You ok?" Eric inquired as he ran the razor down my skin.

"Shiny," I told him.

"You two been dating long?"

"I'm…we're," I sputtered, jerking with surprise, and was oh so grateful that Eric had finished with the razor.

"We're not dating," Masen clarified quietly.

Eric laughed. "Really? You going to let him stay for this?"

"I couldn't care less what he does."

Masen burst out laughing but I refused to look at him.

Eric's eyes slid from my face to Masen and back again. "So why's he here?" he asked.

"Because I hate him."

Masen laughed even louder and Eric smiled again. "Fine with me," he decided. At least my suffering was a source of entertainment to others.

Eric finished placing the stencil and asked me to approve its appearance before he started. I gave him my approval and sat down in the chair, reclining the back so that I was almost laying down.

I attempted to appear unfazed as Eric loaded ink into the tattoo gun. Masen sat down the chair next to me, rubbing his hands together as though eager for the coming attraction. God I hated him.

"Your ex?" Eric asked, still trying to assess Masen's relationship to me.

"Stalker," I replied before I could stop myself.

"It's not stalking when you don't actually want to be around the other party," Masen objected

"You're here aren't you?" I retorted, still refusing to look at him.

"Because you don't want me to be here. Your misery is my delight."  
"So if I begged you to stay, you'd go?"

"Try and find out," he taunted, his eyes on my hip as he attempted to write out the stenciled phrase on the back of a receipt.

I huffed.

"So why're you getting a tattoo," Masen inquired as Eric turned the tattoo gun on.

"I don't know. It's a thing to do. Why not?"

Eric's brow tensed, no doubt wondering if I was serious. I gestured to the design waiting on my skin to be inked. _Get on with it already._

"Have you got a thing for pain?" Masen asked, staring at my hip as if entranced.

"I'm not like you Masen." I paused, trying not to wince as I felt the gun pressing into my flesh. "I don't have to stoop to fetishes to derive pleasure out of life."

"Why get a tattoo if you don't like pain?" he asked, his eyes following every movement of the gun against my skin.

"See something you like?" I asked, uncomfortable with his stare.

"Maybe, if I was the one with the gun."

"Pervert."

"Really? Let's ask Eric what he thinks."

"Leave him out of this!" I looked at Eric to make sure that Masen hadn't offended him. If he was bothered, he didn't let on. He was smiling, eyes on his work.

"Don't be a hypocrite, Swan," Masen warned. "A girl who's into pain shouldn't be so judgmental."

"I'm not _into _pain. And I'm not judgmental."

"Why get a tattoo then, if you're not _into _it?"

"The physical manifestation of an abstract concept. But pain and pleasure," I reasoned. "They're both just sensations. It seems rather pointless. Don't you think?"

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

"Sex. With you. It sounds boring."

Eric started choking. I eyed him carefully, hoping he knew what he was doing with that tattoo gun.

"Sex with me is _not _boring," Masen clarified.

"Whatever. It sounds monotonous."

"If sex is boring, then you're not doing it right."

"Humans have been having sex for 1.7 million years. It's not as if you'll invent something new."

"Oh ye of little faith. Stop trying to change the subject. If you're not into pain, then perhaps the tattoo is a form of penance. Tell me, why do you feel like you deserve to suffer?"

My head snapped in Masen's direction. "I don't think I deserve anything."

"Then why get a tattoo?"

"It's a reminder."

"A reminder of what?"

_That I should avoid people like you. _I put my chin up. "That's none of your business."

Masen seemed to think about it, then shook his head. "We'll see about that." He pulled out his phone.

"What're you doing?"

"You're not that deep, my dear. I'll have that snake figured out before you're out of that chair."

I cocked my head in dismissal. "Good luck."

Eric remained silent, evidently enjoying the banter as he merrily set to scarring my skin. I held myself stiff, not willing to embarrass myself in front of either of these men with the slightest show of weakness.

"Let's see, let's see," Masen said, playing with his phone. "What about Chimera? A fire-breathing lion with a snake's tail. She has a goat's head." Masen looked at me speculatively.

A _goat's _head?Was I really that hideous?_ Say it motherfucker. I dare you._

He shook his head. "No, that's not it."

So he had at least some sense of self-preservation.

"Oh, this one's good. Medusa." Masen smiled, looking up at me. "That's it, isn't it? Some feminist, pro-bitch statement?"

He glanced back down at his phone. "Says here that feminists everywhere should reclaim the Medusa as one of their own." He tapped the screen. "Hey, that picture's not so bad. I'd hit that." He tapped the screen again and grimaced. "Maybe not."

Masen stopped playing with his phone to gaze at me. "Is that it? You think you're the Medusa? Really? You're not that unattractive. Please don't tell me this is a cry for help." He leaned towards me. "You're not allowed to hurt yourself," he stage whispered.

"Fuck you."

He chuckled, leaning back. "I'm not the one paying someone to scar me for life."

"No you like girls to let you do it for free."

Masen scowled as Eric fairly chortled with mirth. At least the gun wasn't anywhere near my skin that time.

"Does it look like this snake is coming out of my head?" I snapped.

"Good point," Masen decided, rejecting the Medusa as a viable option. He looked back down at his phone. "Alright then, what about this one?" He paused. "'_Half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin_.'" Masen scrutinized me as if attempting to identify my species. "Do you feel great and awful?"

"You make me feel pretty awful."

"Tsk, tsk, Swan, I expect more out of you."

"Well, excuse me if I'm a bit distracted by the needle that's repeatedly puncturing my skin."

"You know you love it."

"I know I hate you."

"Me think she doth protest too much."

"Me think you shouldn't quote trite and overused clichés." I hissed, trying to breathe evenly as Eric went over the same patch of skin a few times.

"Ugh," Masen clutched his chest. "The viper bites again. So cruel. Maybe she is a snake after all."

I didn't say anything.

"Echidna then. We may have to come back to her. Let's see, who else do we have?" Masen was quiet for a minute. "Damn. Please tell me this isn't it. Six heads, each one of them armed with three rows of fangs, and tentacles for legs. '_A deathless horror…There at the door of her cavern, she swallowed them, my dear friends_.'" He stopped reading. "Fuck me. No wonder it took him so long to get home."

"I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that he was a philandering whore," I snapped. "No wonder Penelope wouldn't pick one of the suitors. She liked running things on her own."

"There she is, the feminist I love to hate. Tell me, grad student. What's the name of the six-headed she-beast who enjoyed the taste of Odysseus' sailors?"

"Scylla," I replied quickly, then cursed myself for stooping to his level.

"And is she the inspiration for this little act of self-mortification you've got going on today?"

"I'm a vegetarian, Masen. I don't eat men."

"That's what they all say."

"I might make exceptions for particularly deserving assholes."

"That's what I thought," he concluded gravely, returning to his phone.

There was a moment of silence. I wondered-hoped-Masen was done.

"The Gorgons had snake hair too, did you know that?" Masen asked a minute later.

So much for hope. I ignored him, staring up at myself in the mirror on the ceiling.

"Not going to play anymore?" Masen paused, waiting for me. When I didn't say anything, he sighed and flipped his phone closed. "Fine, let's just see what's so special about this book of mine."

I tensed. Did he mean what I thought he did?

_Fuck me_. He did.

Masen opened his purchase from the bookshop and began flipping through the pages.

I waited, wondering just how long it would take him to realize what it was that he had in his hands.

"Good God," Masen cried.

Yep, there it was.

"What the hell is this? How long have you been pushing porn?"

"It's art," I defended in a high-pitched voice.

"Christ Swan, if this is your art, not even Larry Flint would print your porn."

I rolled my eyes.

"You can't honestly expect me to believe that this book isn't about sex," Masen argued.

"Your opinion doesn't concern me."

"But you wanted this book for yourself."

"It holds a great deal of antiquarian interest," I stated primly.

"Ha! Antiquarian my ass. What do grad students do? Sit up at night debating the deconstructive significance of various sexual positions?"

"Yes."

"You need to get laid."

"That's neither here nor there."

"Tell the truth. You get off looking at pictures like this."

"The sociological implications of sexual imagery can hardly be denied. Adequate analysis requires a great deal of comparative research."

"You look at lots and lots of pictures."

"Maybe."

"Sociological implications my ass. What've you got to say about this one?" Masen spun the book around so that I could see. A man was shown hovering over a woman who appeared to be sleeping on a beach.

"Ariadne and Dionysius."

"Who and who?"

"Ari-ad-ne. Left there after saving Theseus from the labyrinth. Dionysius found her."

"How convenient for her."

"I suppose, if she didn't mind being traded back and forth like a piece of property."

"You think it would have been better for her to rot alone on an island?"

"It would have been more realistic. We can't all marry gods."

"You think you're alone, like Ari-what's her name?"

"I know that I'm not Ariadne,"

"Do you? Dionysius was the god of wine, wasn't he?"

I huffed. "That's not the point."

"What's the point?"

"Erigone, hanging from the neck after her father was killed for getting some men drunk. Every action has a consequence. Especially excess."

"But then abstinence must have consequences too."

"Naturally. I am an existentialist."

"I don't know what that means. So sex is wrong? What're you a Puritan?"

"No, sex isn't wrong. But you have to pick a side. You can't do things halfway. And I've picked."

"A side? Good and evil?"

"Indulgence in excess isn't any different from asceticism. They're both paths to the same end. The problem is you can't go halfway. And if you don't pick asceticism, then you really do have to indulge in _everything_. Can you honestly say that you have done so? I'm not just talking a wild summer spent reading Huysmann's _A rebours _or Rimbaud's _Une Saison en Enfer_. I'm talking about unspeakable things. I don't think you could commit such crimes, whatever may have happened in the past. You couldn't take the Hippocratic Oath if that were the case. Unless the doctor thing is a cover for Mengele-like experiments."

"Are you on something?" Masen asked.

"Am I _on_ something? I'm the one who, by definition, isn't _on _anything. If either of us is on something, it's you."

"I have no desire to dull _sensation_. Unlike you."

"Maybe sensation itself is what's dulling your mind."

"Unlikely. When did you decide to give up?"

"Give up?"

"Say 'fuck it' to the white fence and everything else?"

"Why should I answer?"

"Because refusing to do so is just as much an admission."

"I don't think so. Knowledge is power."

"So let's play a game. For every question of mine you answer, I'll answer one of yours."

"Why should I want to ask you any questions?"

"I'm a riveting subject. Didn't you say that one of your teachers was giving you grief over your lack of experience on a particularly awkward topic? Consider me your guide to all things hedonistic."

"I'm not sure that you're a very good hedonist. You might prove more of a hindrance than a help."

"Quiz me and find out."

I held my tongue, but apparently he took my silence for acquiescence, because he proceeded with his first question. "Have you ever seen a doctor about your _condition_?"

"I know that it's in your interest to create work for your profession but I have no wish to be drugged into complacency."

"It's not about being drugged into complacency. It's about taking care of the symptoms so that you can live as normal a life as possible. It's why you should take pain reliever for a strained muscle-so that you don't hurt yourself worse while healing."

"So I'm not normal? Who gets to decide?"

"Evolution," he snorted.

"The planet's overpopulated. It's not like my specific genes are all that important to the future of the human race. And I'll go to a doctor when you do."

He hesitated. _Ha! Take that Masen._

"I went to one once," Masen started to say. "After Port Angeles."

Fuck. I didn't want to talk about this.

"It taught me the value of sublimation," He went on. "Hence a certain club I found you in the other day." He cleared his throat. "My turn again. I'm counting that as one of your questions. What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

"No."

"No?"

"I won't answer."

"If it's Port-"

"It's not."

"Ok. Your turn."

"There's nothing I want to know."

"Oh come now," he tried to lighten the mood. "How about the night I lost my virginity?"

"Sounds boring."

"If I'm so boring, I'll just stop talking."

"Good."

"You're not being very polite, are you?"

"Since when did we start being nice to each other? You imposed yourself on me. Why should I coddle you? You're just like everyone else."

"I don't want you to treat me like everyone else."

"Then man up. I have a question for you after all. Why are you so afraid that someone will find out about the club?"

He glared at me. "I'm not afraid of that."

I shrugged. "You seem like you are. What if Alice found out?"

"I don't think that it's the most appropriate topic of conversation for my baby sister."

"You're ashamed." It wasn't a question.

He clenched his jaw. "I've grown quite accustomed to the idea that my particular tastes aren't shared by many."

"But it's not like you're hurting anyone. D'you feel that Americans are overly rigid in this regard? Or is that rigidity part of the point? There'd be no thrill to deviance if everything was permissible."

"You're not very nice."

"Exactly my point. We don't like each other very much. There's no reason for us to go on antagonizing one another. We should just avoid each other."

Masen paused, looking at me. "But-" he stopped. Taking a deep breath, he started again. "I was hoping you would-you _should_ come to Alice's next happy hour."

I didn't know what to say. I stared at him.

He went on. "It would be more…tolerable if you came."

He couldn't be serious. "Why Mr. Masen," I said in a crappy southern accent. "I do declare, are you trying to court me?"

"Maybe I just want to corrupt you," he retorted.

"I'm incorruptible."

"You could take a chance. Switch sides. Become a hedonist, just for a little while."

"No I couldn't. No more than you could become an ascetic. Read your Basil of Ancyra. It's better not to try at all then to try and fail. Besides, if it's true that the world's just an illusion and we're watching shadows on a cave wall, I don't want to waste my time on futile pursuits."

"Perhaps you're schizophrenic after all," he speculated. "Antisocial tendencies are one of the symptoms."

"Just because you're not up on your philosophical rhetoric doesn't mean that I'm crazy."

"Sane people don't go around declaring the world an illusion."

"It might be a better place if they did. Besides, why do you think I avoid people? No one ever wants to talk about the epistemological implications of ontological dissolution."

Masen gaped at that, stunned into silence for once.

"You sure do know how to talk dirty Beautiful," Eric interjected. He helped me sit up and began dabbing the newly finished tattoo with antibacterial cream.

"Swan and her philosophical speculations," Masen joked, looking at Eric with nary a hint of animosity. "Just like my sister when she starts going on about some new designer. You can't understand a thing either of them say."

I bristled at this show of camaraderie with my tattoo artist. "Oh yes, clothes and shoes. Conversation with your family is just so stimulating. What's on the schedule for next time you all meet? The Cartesian mind-body divide?"

"Come and find out," Masen dared me.

"That's ok. I'm sure I'll survive not knowing."

"God you're a snob."

"I'm not. I just don't see why I should waste my time or yours by pretending to be friends."

"Emmett likes you."

"But not Alice. And not you."

"What do you mean that Alice doesn't like you?"

"She doesn't know me, how could she like me?"

"That's your fault, not hers. And who's the elitist now? Too good for Guinness with the plebs."

"I'm not too good," I said, demurring when Eric asked if I wanted to see the tattoo in the mirror before he started taping it up.

"So you'll come?" Masen asked.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't know why it matters to you."

"I told you, your misery is my delight."

"That's probably true."

"I'll give you the book if you come."

That was unexpected. I swallowed, trying not to show the sudden excitement I felt. "I don't want it."

"Liar."

"It's just a book."

"And you want it."

"Of course. I worship the great god Dionysius and compose paeans to his glory."

"And get off looking at pornographic art painted a thousand years ago."

"Two thousand years ago. And maybe I want the book because I'm a pagan. I dance naked on moonlit hills and suckle snakes." I closed my eyes, realizing that I'd almost given myself away with that last bit.

"A pagan?"

"Ulalale motherfucker," I opened my eyes. "Ulalale."

Masen shook his head. "What kind of an ascetic lusts after porn? You're a hypocrite."

"I'm not. The pictures are metaphorical."

"Bullshit. They're literal. Don't tell me that they don't turn you on."

"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about."

"Swan." Masen was laughing. "They do. They turn you on. I know they do. Take a look at this and tell me you don't want to try that one day."

I looked away, refusing to give myself away.

Eric tried to save me. "It don't matter," he said, taping the gauze in place. "Beautiful's saving herself for me."

I ducked my head in embarrassment.

"All done," Eric announced.

I thanked him and grabbed my things, hurrying through the curtain into the store proper.

Masen followed, hanging back as I headed for the register.

"Since we're here," he taunted. "Don't you want to look around? It's a sex shop after all. They cater to all sorts of fetishes. They'll even have something for you. Come on. It'll be my treat."

I ignored him and went up to the pay. Masen dropped his credit card next to mine on the counter.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"Oh, just something I need. Don't worry about it. I wouldn't want to sully your innocent little mind with the details."

The bubblegum handed me a pen and I signed for the charge.

"Hey," I shouted, looking up just as Masen grabbed my bag of books.

"I'll carry that for you," Masen told me.

"Isn't one book enough? Do you have to steal the rest too?"

"_Steal_? I purchased that book using perfectly legal tender. Come on, you're holding up important business."

"Can I have my books now?" I asked, following Masen out of the shop.

"Where're you parked?" Masen asked.

"I'm not parked. I walked."

"You walked all the way here?"

"It's not raining."

"For once. And lucky for you." Masen leered at my chest.

I stepped back, resisting the urge to cross my arms over my entirely chaste chest. I spoke slowly, enunciating my words carefully. "May I please have my books?"

"Nope. I'll drive you home."

"What?"

"I'll drive you home."

"Why?" What was his obsession with driving me places?

"You shouldn't have to walk. Not with a fresh tattoo."

I leapt forward, grabbing for the books.

He lurched the bag out of the way. I tugged on it uselessly before dropping my hands.

He looked down at my hands. "Does this mean that you're giving in?"

"You're stronger than me. It's illogical to fight a battle I can't win."

He smirked and turned, leading me to the street where his car was parked. I followed in silence, wondering again if the American legal system considered book-theft a mitigating factor in murder.

Undecided, I resigned myself to playing nice. I even let him open the door for me when we got to his car.

But I reached for the books as soon as we were both in the car. "Not so fast," he said, moving the bag out of my reach. "I'll give them to you when we get there."

"Why not now?"

"Insurance. I want to make sure you behave."

I was sure that my eyes were blazing. "Don't threaten my books Masen," I snarled.

"Behave," he admonished.

"I thought you wanted me out of control." I was gripping the passenger door now, trying to keep myself in check.

"They're just books," he laughed uneasily.

"I'm not shocked that someone like you thinks it's alright to act so cavalierly with another's belongings. But you should watch your step," I warned, fastening my seatbelt with a violent snap.

Masen started the car and pulled away from the curb. "Someone like me?"

"You know exactly what I mean. You were always like this, I'm sure. Being adopted by the Cullens probably just confirmed it."

"Confirmed what?" he pulled off the side street onto the main road.

"You know."

"No really. What do you mean?"

"Your _place_ vis-à-vis the rest of society. Being better than everyone else."

He shook his head. "You don't believe that. Not a Molotov cocktail throwing Commie like you."

"I may want to overthrow the elite establishment, but I can't pretend it doesn't exist."

"Is that why you didn't come to Alice's last happy hour?" he asked. "You don't think you belong."

"You said it yourself. I _don't_ belong."

"As easy as that?"

"The Cullens don't have anything I want."

"You thought we did?"

"I was wrong."

"I guess I didn't do a very good job of impressing you with the Space Needle. Where should I have taken you instead? A library?"

"The music in that night club was so loud that I couldn't even hear myself think."

"Less thinking would be good for you. That's a very popular lounge, you know."

"I surmised as much. It was clear that people came to be seen and not much else."

"You _are_ a snob. I never even had a chance to impress you."

"Please, you didn't try."

"What should I have done instead?"

I shrugged. "Shown me a flower where no flower should have been able to grow. Displayed uncalculated kindness. I'm impressed by self-effacement in any form."

"You think I'm incapable of modesty?"

"Masen, don't despair over your faults. Acknowledge and move on."

The traffic cleared and Masen pulled onto my street. "You could just try," he said softly.

"Try what?"

"Sex." Masen parked, hitting the child locks before he got out of the car and started sprinting around to my side. I was too fast for him though, reaching across the center console and undoing the lock. I was already halfway out of the door by the time he reached me.

"Here I am trying to perform an act of uncalculated kindness," he protested. "And you won't let me."

"It's not efficient. We both get out of the car much faster this way."

"No price can be placed on courtesy."

I didn't respond.

"What? No witty comeback?"

"I'm thinking. I'll have one soon."

"Next Thursday?" he asked, reminding me of his sister's plan to meet every week for happy hour.

"Next Thursday," I confirmed, if only to make him go away.

"I mean it," Masen replied. "I'll try to be _nice_, or whatever. And if you're bored, you can leave."

I was shocked at Masen's tone. He almost sounded sincere. "You really hate your family that much?"

"I'm indifferent," he insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary.

"Masen, you're pitiful."

His eyes snapped to mine. "You're in the same boat. You're just as alone as I am."

"But I don't care. You do."  
"Aren't you lonely?" he sounded surprised.

"I thought that I was once. Then I realized that it was just panic attacks. I went to a school psychologist and she fell asleep on me. So I got over it." I took out my keys. "What would be the point of being lonely? I can't have more, so why bother thinking about it?"

"You can cut yourself off? Just like that?"

"Just like that." I watched a muscle work in Masen's jaw. "I'm not surprised that you're having difficulty, considering your lifestyle. Misplaced affection and all that."

He glared at me. "I'm not some teenaged girl who's just lost her cherry."

"And I'm not the one who needs help coping with his siblings."

"If I admit that I'm lonely, will you come then?" he asked, the harshness of his tone contrasting strangely against the vulnerability of his words.

I gaped at him for a minute, fumbling with my keys. How could someone so weak have caused me so much pain? In fact, it _hurt_ to see him in pain, to hear him suggest that I was in the position of causing him pain. _I _had never hurt anyone. I only ever hurt myself. I let them hurt me.

"I'll come," I promised, unsure whether or not I actually meant it.

He was in his car and driving down the street before I realized that I was just standing there staring after him. Confused and frustrated, I turned away and concentrated my energies on unlocking the door.

Once inside, I threw myself down on the futon and greedily dumped my new books on the bedspread, eager for a diversion. But gazing down at the little lovelies, I couldn't help but gasp.

Masen had slipped the volume of oh so controversial art inside the bag with my other purchases.

"Some of them want to use you / Some of them want to get used by you / Some of them want to abuse you / Some of them want to be abused / I'm going to use you and abuse you / I want to know what it feels like."

- "Sweet Dreams," the Marilyn Manson remake

EPOV

I needed a drink. And a Greek dictionary.

She had split personalities. It was the only explanation.

But if so, why was _I _the one following her around all afternoon? Why had I bought a book written in a language I couldn't read? Why had I convinced a tattoo artist to secretly give her a huge discount, covering the difference myself? And why was I begging her to spend time with me?

Making sense of my behavior was an exercise in futility. I gave up and decided to just get drunk.

As I wasn't far from Breaking Dawn, I pulled into a parking garage three blocks away.

_I'm not embarrassed by the club_, I told myself as I walked past the many empty parking spaces on the way to the club, _it's simply healthier to walk._

I made for the bar as soon as I entered, ordering a Jack and Coke.

Scanning the tables as I drank, I considered my options. _Why not find someone tonight and fuck her brains out? _Maybe I could find someone who read ancient Greek. _Fuck._

"Eddie," a voice purred behind me. I tensed involuntarily.

"Whatever happened to you and your little doe?" Tanya asked, a champagne flute twirling between her fingers as she drew in front of me.

"Nothing," I hitched a shoulder.

She tsked at me. "You would let something like that go? It's not often you have such an opportunity."

I shook my head. "I don't know what you mean."

Tanya smiled. "She's a virgin, isn't she? And not _untouchable_, I think. How common is that? If you don't seize the opportunity, surely some other man here will snatch her up."

"She's not coming back," I said, strangely pleased to be able to tell Tanya this. "She doesn't want anything more to do with Breaking Dawn."

"She told you that?" For a minute, Tanya looked angry. Then her face smoothed over. "All the better. She's resisting. It will make your victory all the sweeter."

I snorted. "Are you serious?"

Tanya arched a perfectly shaped brow. "What? She's a little plain. So? The unattainable nature of the prize compensates for any drawbacks. No?"

I swallowed the rest of my drink in one gulp. My brain refused to credit Tanya's suggestion. I remembered the sight of Swan's foot disappearing under the curtain of one of Breaking Dawn's tables, and I felt my teeth grinding together.

I tried to clear my head, closing my eyes, and was assaulted with the sense memory of Swan sitting on my lap, grinding against me. Her tongue on my collar bone.

A sudden heat surged through my veins.

Only to be followed by a draught of ice as I recalled the many times in high school that Swan had sneered at me.

She'd never let me touch her.

I opened my eyes. "You're wrong," I told Tanya. "She's incorruptible."

If I hadn't known it was impossible, I would have thought that Tanya giggled. "Well, we'll just have to try extra _hard_." Her hand brushed against my thigh, emphasizing her last word. "Let's consider it an experiment, shall we?" she asked.

"To corrupt Swan?" I removed her hand from my thigh.

"Is that her name?" Tanya really did giggle this time. "How gorgeously inappropriate." She shivered. "It's surreal."

"Her first name's Bella."

"Stop! Now I know that you're lying. No parent would be so cruel as to name their daughter Bella Swan unless she was certain to be a beauty. Poor girl. No wonder she's a virgin."

"About the experiment–"

"Yes, to corrupt Bella Swan. Surely you'll want to play."

I stared at the ice melting in my glass. What Tanya was suggesting was monstrous.

But I was a monster.

I stood up.

"Where're you going?" Tanya asked. "We need to plan your seduction."  
"I don't need your help," I told her.

I turned and left, ignoring Tanya's voice as she called after me.

I was sure of three things: First, I shouldn't want to corrupt Isabella Swan. Second, I had already caused her enough harm. And third, I was going to irrevocably and irredeemably corrupt her.

Because for all that I'd put her through, she was still uncorrupted. I could see it. She was pure. And that simply wasn't fair to the rest of us.

I had some research to do.

**A/N**

Reviewers will learn what Bella's tattoo says, in English.

Recommendation: E Pluribus Unum, by Rosette-Cullen

'_Half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin_.' Hesiod, _Theogony_ on Project Perseus

'_A deathless horror…There at the door of her cavern, she swallowed them, my dear friends_.' - Homer, trans. Allen Mandelbaum

Erigone's father invented wine and was killed by the lucky few who enjoyed the first serving. They suspecting him of poisoning them. Erigone hanged herself out of grief.

This chapter was not censored.


	12. Chapter 11

I don't own Twilight.

Chapter 11 – A God to Marry

"Amata, who, with a woman's distress, a woman's passion, was seething with frenzy…On her the goddess flings a snake from her dusky tresses, and thrusts it into her bosom, into her inmost heart…Gliding between her raiment and smooth breasts, it winds its ways unfelt and, unseen by the frenzied woman, breathes into her its viperous breath…the taint, stealing on in fluent poison, thrills her senses and wraps her bones with fire…[Amata] flies forth to the forest, and hides her daughter in the leafy mountains, in order by this means to…delay the nuptial torch…'Bacchus!' she shrieks. 'You alone,' she shouts, 'are worthy of the maiden!'" - Thus does Amata attempt to prevent her daughter's marriage to Aeneas by devoting the girl to Bacchus - Virgil _Aeneid_ trans. H. Ruhston Fairclough

BPOV

"What do you want?"

What did I want? More than six hours of sleep at any given time. No more loans to my name. Peace free of strife.

"Would you like to try one of our new designer cupcakes?"

_Cupcakes do not burning tempers soothe_.

And what made them _designer _anyhow?

"Venti Pike Roast," I said, in sheep-like deference to the etiquette of the caffeine-deprived masses.

"Do you have a coffee card?"

I glared at her. "Of course." How else did she think that I was going to earn enough points for my next Venti Soy Pumpkin Spice Latte with an extra shot of espresso and extra whip cream?

"Can I…have it?"

Oh.

I handed it over, feigning nonchalant indifference as I waited for my coffee. Sidestepping a display of coffee mugs and instant coffee packs, I accidentally knocked a package of coffee on the ground.

Bending over to pick up the package, I knocked down two more.

I lost my balance and my left hand hit the ground.

_The ground. _Well-trodden, filthy, and stained.

Steadying myself, I picked up the coffee and tried to put it back on the table, knocking over a plastic travel mug in the process.

I reached for the mug just as a gentleman's loafer kicked it just out of reach.

I crab-walked forward and carefully rose to my feet once I had seized it.

Replacing the mug, I pretended that nothing had happened, surreptitiously removing a package of hand wipes from my pocket.

I could see people glaring at me in the reflection of the pastry case.

I wondered if the staff would mind me going back to make my drink myself. It was just a Pike Roast. How hard could it be?

Someone's cell started beeping obnoxiously.

Someone. With a life.

Fuck them.

Wait. Was that my phone?

I checked the reflection in the pastry case and sure enough even more people were glaring at me. Or maybe it was the designer cupcakes.

I carefully swung my backpack around so that I could get into the front flap without sliding the straps off of my shoulders. I tried not to notice the two or three people backing up to give me a wide berth.

It was probably a wrong number. No one ever called me, not even Jacob or Angela.

It was Alice Cullen. _Shit._

"Ma'am, your coffee."

_Shit. _Snapping the phone shut, I grabbed my coffee, happy for the chance to escape. And spinning towards the door, I found myself face-to-face with Dr. Volturri.

In horror, I watched as coffee splashed out the tiny opening on top of my cup.

Helpless, I watched as the drop fell…fell…and fell, landing on the tip of one of Dr. Volturri's black boots.

_Thank Zeus_.

I sighed.

Dr. Volturri raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry!" I blurted.

"The carrot cake designer cupcake," Dr. Volturri ordered, looking past me into the pastry case.

"Dr. Volturri-"

"Hmmph?"

I fled.

"_I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask / I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment_."

– Catullus on Clodia Pulcher

"So as you go forth in your lives, falling in and out of love, wasting time on one misguided adventure after another, remember that not even two great lovers like Clodia Pulcher and Catullus could make it last. After all, no one picks a poet over a dictator."

And with that, Dr. Volturri ended the day's lecture. I watched her disconnect her mike and pack up her briefcase.

"I don't know," Angela mused quietly as students began filing past. "I bet Catullus let her tie him down. I just don't see Caesar doing that."

"You scare the shit out of me," Jacob replied. "Do you know that?"

Angela rolled her eyes. "The guy doesn't _always_ have to be on top. Isn't that right, Bella?"

_That's right. He can also be in another room, in another house, on another street._

Declining to answer, I busied myself with the onerous burden of closing my notebook.

Jacob nudged my shoulder. I glared at him—there was no excuse for violence in the workplace, bondage or not. Jacob was looking pointedly over my shoulder.

Turning around, I saw one of my students—James—watching us from a few rows away.

"Hello," I said invitingly. I waited.

Nothing.

I noticed that James' eyelids were drooping slightly. Perhaps the boy was sleepwalking. I would have thought that bondage would be enough to keep a teenage boy awake, but I was clearly out of the loop.

"So," I hesitated, having heard that sleepwalkers shouldn't be startled awake, "did you want something?" Jacob and Angela stood up and started putting the equipment away. Didn't they know better than to leave me alone with a sleepwalker who thought bondage was passé?

"Are you going to be at your office hours today?" James asked slowly.

"I am," I confirmed, pleased to know that he was awake after all. Dr. Volturri's lecture hadn't been _that_ boring.

"Are you going there right now?"

I looked at my watch. I had five minutes. "I will be." He didn't move. "Soon," I clarified. "I'll be there soon."

"Ok."

"Ok." He stared at me a few beats longer, just in case I bolted, I suppose. I stayed put.

He must have decided I was good for my promise, because he left me on my own recognizance.

I went upstairs with Angela and Jacob a few minutes later, as we all believed strongly in the buddy system. James was already sitting in the chair next to my desk, waiting for me.

"Hey," I greeted him again, putting my backpack down. "So what can I do for you?"

"You've got a plant," James pointed out.

I glanced at the philodendron in the corner of my desk. He wasn't wrong.

"No one else has a plant," he added.

I looked around the room. Right again.

"Why do you have a plant?"

"No reason," I said.

"Your desk is covered in wrapping paper."

"Yes. Yes it is." I stared ruefully at the brown shipping paper covered in my scribbled handwriting.

"Why?"

"So that I can write on my desk."

"Why?"

Good question. What was wrong with me? "I suppose that I get bored," I mused.

"So you write on your desk?"

"It would seem that I do." The evidence spoke for itself.

"No one else has wrapping paper on their desk."

I saw Jacob stand up and walk to the filing cabinet in the corner, his back shaking in silent laughter.

"I have a condition," I explained.

"A condition that makes you write on your desk?"

"That's one of the symptoms."

"Can't you take medicine?"

"Doctors say it's untreatable."

James grimaced at me. "And you believe them?"

"They don't have any reason to lie."

"What's your condition called?"

"_Horror vacui_."

"Whore-what?"

"_Horror vacui_."

"I don't understand."

"That's ok."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Angela prop her chin on her fist to study James and I. "So what can I do for you?"

"Is there going to be a quiz today?"

"There's a quiz every week."

"Why? It's a _discussion _group, not a _writing _group."

"The quizzes are Dr. Volturri's requirement."

"But it's _your_ discussion group. Can't you do what you want?"

"I work for _her_. It's not _my_ discussion group. I'm sure Dr. Volturri would be happy to discuss her policy with you."

"If you're the one who's going to be grading us, I think you're the one I need to be talking to."

I took a deep breath. "Is there something in particular that you're worried about for today's quiz?"

James fidgeted. "Well, what's going to be on it?"

"Questions from your reading. Did you do the reading?"

"Yeah. It was really long though."

It was forty pages.

"And I don't remember all of the names," he continued. "They were hard to spell."

"I don't take off for spelling on these quizzes."

"Oh. Well, still I'm not sure what's going to be on the quiz, so I couldn't really study."

"Do you have your book with you? You could skim the reading right now."

"I didn't bring my book."

"Why don't you go to the library and get a copy?" I suggested. "You still have thirty minutes."

"No. I don't think I need to do that."

"Ok."

He didn't move.

"Was there something else?" I asked hopefully.

"What kind of questions are going to be on the quiz?"

Jacob laughed out loud.

"Dates. Names. Events." I answered. "If you don't know an answer, guess. It's multiple choice."

"Is it going to be hard?"

"There won't be any trick questions," I promised. "We're just checking for basic understanding."

"That sounds easy."

"Yes. Easy." As a co-ed on _Girls Gone Wild._

Motherfucker was still sitting there.

"Well, if there's nothing else, I'm going to get lunch," I said.

"During your office hours?"

"I'm going to the TA lounge down the hall to get my lunch and bring it back to my desk to eat it."

He blinked at me. What-the-fuck-ever. I stood up and tripped on the corner of my desk, nearly knocking the philodendron down. Righting myself, I hurried to the TA lounge and threw a fifty-five cent packet of Lipton-Knorr Alfredo pasta in a bowl with some water. Watching the seconds on the microwave count down, I conjugated Latin verbs in my head. _Amo amas amat amamus amatis amant._ I hoped James would be gone by the time my was food done.

I also hoped for a million dollars.

For some reason, the gods did not feel inclined to grant either wish.

"I'm going to look at my notes," James told me when I got back to my desk.

"Oh-kay." I thought for a minute, then took an article out of my backpack and started to read while my pasta cooled.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"The Ascetic Body and the (Un)Making of the World of the Martyr," I answered. "Have you read it?"

"No."

"Oh."

I shoved a mouthful of pasta in my mouth.

"What are you eating?"

I swallowed painfully. "Pasta?"

"Oh." He blinked at me, then looked down at his book.

James and I sat together for twenty more minutes. Me eating and reading and pretending not to notice Angela and Jacob making obscene gestures behind James' head.

James read. Or pretended to read. Whenever I glanced at him, he was staring at me.

Ten minutes before class, I put the article back in my desk. "Coming?" I asked, irrationally hoping that he would decline_._

He shoved his book in his bag and stood up. I supposed that was a yes. I pulled my backpack on and headed for the stairs. James followed a step or two behind. I glanced over my shoulder and paused for a beat so that he could catch up, but he stopped too, waiting. So I started going again. He followed me all the way down three flights of stairs and out onto the quad and to another building to where our class had been moved thanks to a leak. Then he followed me up two more flights of stairs and down a hall and into our classroom. He walked two steps behind the entire time.

Refusing to ponder the problems of strange undergraduates and the goats they must have sacrificed to convince the entrance committee to let them into college, I started class, only to realize that I'd forgotten the quizzes. I administered the multiple choice questions from memory and joked that they were lucky I had good recall. They looked at me. "You know, because then we couldn't take the quiz." They kept looking at me.

Fuckers.

Fifty minutes, three Roman dictators, and one emotionally castrated poet later I was convinced that not one of my students would give a shit if they lost the vote and had to settle for writing sonnets.

Consoling myself with the knowledge that they'd probably never bother to vote anyhow, I headed to the library to pick up my check.

"Oh Bella! You can work for an hour or two, can't you?"

What?

"Benjamin called in sick, and we've got all these carts waiting to be shelved."

Because someone was probably up on the third floor right now looking for _Sewer System Maintenance in Fifteenth Century Italy._

235

532

Two hours and ten carts later, I was in the Loebs. I pulled Plutarch's _Isis and Osiris_ off the shelf, closed my eyes, and let the book fall open to a random page. I opened one eye and read: "_Heracleitus the physical philosopher says, 'The same are Hades and Dionysus, to honour whom they rage and rave_.'" What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

An hour later, I was walking two pit bulls, a German Shepherd, and three weimaraners when I decided that Heracleitus was all about things ending, and that he'd never endorse raging and raving. So Masen could go jump off a bridge if he thought I was going to his sister's happy hour that night.

I bent forward to pat the pit bulls on the head. They understood.

The German Shepherd, however, was less accommodating. Leaping forward, he nearly ripped my shoulder out of the socket. I jerked on his leash, tugging the pack over to the grass next to the sidewalk.

Looking up to see what had warranted such a hostile reaction, I saw James standing in front of us, blocking the sidewalk.

"The quiz wasn't as easy as you said it'd be," he said evenly.

"What?" The German Shepherd was barking and the weimaraners were circling anxiously.

"The quiz. It wasn't as easy as you said."

Was this really happening? I grabbed the German Shepherd's collar and yanked him back.

"I can talk to you during my office hours, James."

"Is that your phone?" he asked, looking down at the sidewalk.

No, my phone was still in my backpack.

Except that I'd shoved it in my jacket pocket this morning in the coffee shop, and now it was sitting on the sidewalk. It started ringing as James picked it up.

He flipped it open. My mouth gaped open as I watched him answer. "Hello?" He listened for a minute. "It's for you." He handed the phone to me. As if it would be for anyone else.

I snatched it out of his hand, annoyed that social courtesy prevented my immediate use of a hand wipe.

"Hello?" I asked, moving so that the German Shepherd would have to go through me to get at James.

"Izzy!" I jerked the phone away from my ear in pain. Did she have to yell?

"Alice," I answered. "I'm kind of busy right now."

"I just want to make sure you're coming over to my boutique this afternoon."

"Your shop?" I asked. A cyclist went by, distracting the German Shepherd with his stupid shiny silver rims.

"You remember," she insisted.

No, I didn't.

"So I can show you some things," she finished.

I tried to pull the dogs further away from the sidewalk. One of the weinmaraners was barking now and the pit bulls were getting mischievous looks in their eyes.

I glanced at James. "Sure Alice. I'll be there in an hour."

She hung up without saying goodbye and I shoved the phone back in my pocket.

"I've got to go," I told James and turned the dogs around.

Unfortunately, James didn't follow, so the German Shepherd had to go home hungry.

I was at Alice's shop at a quarter to four. Or rather, I was across the street from her shop waiting around the corner.

I was going to walk in exactly on the dot. _Maybe._

I'd only agreed to come because of James, so that he would think that I had people who would notice if I went missing. Now that James was out of the picture, I could just call and cancel. Or not call. It wasn't as if Alice really would notice if I missed our appointment because I was kidnapped and chained to a water heater.

"Hey," a voice said behind me. "What're you doing waiting out here?"

I turned to find Rosalie walking towards me, sipping from a Starbucks cup. I eyed it enviously. Maybe she'd share.

She grinned and linked arms with me. "Come on. Don't be shy!"

I tried to relax, forcing my arm to stay right where it was, linked around Rosalie's. _Temptress with her freshly brewed coffee beans! _We crossed the street together and went inside the shop.

"Rosalie! Izzy!" I heard someone shriek. A tiny, spike-haired creature launched herself at us, wrapping herself around our waists.

I forced myself to pat Alice's shoulder.

"So I've got everything set up in back," Alice told us, pulling away and leading us towards the dressing rooms.

"Here we go." She stopped by two racks and pulled them towards us. "What do you think?"

My mouth fell open. Was she serious?

Rosalie was cooing. I had to say something. Would Alice believe that I was allergic to silk? And rayon? And wool? And whatever the hell _that_ was?

"They're–" I tried to think of an appropriate adjective "–awesome?" As in _awe_-some. As in I was in awe, wondering how much liquor Alice had to use to pry the patterns off the backs of Seattle's homeless. Why would someone make a silk dress that looked like a burlap sack?

Alice laughed. "I know, right?" So try them on and we'll decide what you'll wear tonight. Then we'll move on to hair and make-up."

She expected me to _wear_ this? Tonight? In public?

Rosalie was already going through one of the racks.

Alice noticed my hesitation. "Do you need help picking?" Before I could even answer, she was pushing hangers aside and holding random garments up in front of me. "This one," she announced, deciding on a dark blue stretch dress with off the shoulder sleeves.

"Alice, I don't think–"

"Just try it on. Please!" Alice pleaded, looking at me as if I was threatening to pickle her puppy.

"Fine."

I grabbed the dress and went into a changing booth. I slipped out of my thrift shop couture, which really was fine to wear to a happy hour.

I checked the price tag on the dress Alice had picked. Two hundred dollars! It was sweat shirt material for Ares' sake.

I groaned and forced myself to put the thing on.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't hideous. The skirt swirled prettily when I swayed my hips.

But I didn't wear _pretty_ and I didn't sway my hips and my entire wardrobe probably cost two hundred dollars.

Besides, my bra straps were exposed by the whole off the shoulder thing and the clingy fabric showed just how cheap my underwear was (_underwear_, not _panties_, as the latter should cost more than three dollars each).

I pulled the dress off and put my clothes back on.

"What's wrong?" Alice pouted when I came out of the booth. "Doesn't it fit?"

"It fits just fine," I said, returning the dress to the rack and stepping away resolutely. I wasn't trying on anything else.

"Don't you like it?"

"I like it."

"Then what's the problem?"

There were so many problems with this scenario that I didn't know where to start. I settled for the most basic. "I don't have the right…lingerie."

Alice perked right up. "We can take care of that." She grabbed my hand and started to drag me away.

I looked around wildly for Rosalie, desperate for help. She had disappeared into one of the changing booths, perhaps never to be seen again.

Alice halted in front of a wall of nighties. Great.

I stopped her when she pulled down a thong.

"Alice, that costs more than what I spend on groceries in a week. Not to mention the dress. I can't afford this."

"Oh. Relax Izzy," she giggled. "I know that."

I was going to fucking stab her.

"These are gifts. Just remember, when they ask you who you're wearing: 'Alice Cullen.'"

"You designed the dress?" I was a little surprised. I actually liked it.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Duh. Why'd you think you're here?"

_I don't know. Why don't you tell me?_ I let her push me back into a changing booth with the dress, a strapless bra and the thong, then stood, looking down at the clothes in my hands. Was I really going to do this? Play dress up like we were ten again, when I was so desperate for friendship that I would have done anything, craving companionship like a vampire craves blood. It had made me malleable, willing to go along with whatever Alice wanted. A fucking pet.

I reached for the buttons on my shirt.

Rosalie was done when I emerged in the dress. I looked like a child who'd rifled through her mother's closet, but Rosalie looked—I believe the word is "_fierce_."

"Like an Amazon," Alice complimented.

"The Amazons cut off their left breasts," I corrected. "The Samothracians. So that they could draw their bows unobstructed."

Alice giggled at me. I think she thought I was joking.

I was pulled from my musings by Alice's efforts to pry my feet of my black flats.

"No," I said firmly. "I'm wearing these."

"But you would look so much better in matching heels. The height would make your legs seem thinner."

_Seem _thinner? Really? I tried to smile and probably just ended up grimacing. "I'm wearing the shoes I have on now. No negotiation."

Alice pursed her lips. "You were a lot more accommodating in high school."

In high school. That would be when I moved to Forks for good and the Cullens adopted Edward and Alice stopped speaking to me. "I can take the dress off," I offered.

"No, no." Alice held up her hands, physically blocking me from the changing booths. "Alright, fine. But you have to let me do your hair and make-up."

"I don't wear a great deal of cosmetics," I warned her. "I have excellent skin." _Suck on that_. "I wouldn't want to jeopardize that." I sniffed, remembering the bottles and bottles of concealer she'd gone through in high school.

She pushed me into a chair.

I closed my eyes. _Amo amas amat amamus amatis amant._

I felt Alice's hands in my hair and I forced myself to relax. "You could be so pretty if you did something with your hair, Izzy. Have you ever thought of cutting it?"

My eyes snapped open. "I like my hair."

Alice nodded. "I know, but you could just try something new. Maybe it would help you get a boyfriend."

Meaning that I couldn't have a boyfriend _now. _Meaning that I wasn't pretty _now_.

I blinked rapidly, fighting against the burning at the corners of my eyes.

_Amabam amabas_—

"Alice, be nice," Rosalie chided.

Alice laughed. "If you can't count on a friend to tell you the truth, who can you count on?"

A friend? Was Alice being a friend when she let her other friends make fun of me in high school?

I clenched my jaw, refusing to let myself cry in front of her.

And dear God, she'd been grateful enough when I'd stopped speaking to her back then. What kind of a friend lets you stop talking to her? Lets you drop off the face of the earth? Lets her _new_ friends treat you like dirt?

I could hear Alice babbling. I blocked out the sound.

_Amabam amabas amabat amabamus_.

I swallowed carefully.

Stoic virtues: Nothing ought to cause distress but the loss of the Good.

Did it matter that Alice thought so little of me?

No. Her opinion was just that, _opinion_. Transient.

And to stop her, I'd have to acknowledge the insult she'd done to me.

I couldn't. I preferred pretense to vulgar reality.

After all, what did I care for the fleeting representation of material fancies?

Just skin and hair and teeth.

Because I was nothing, nothing, nothing.

"Izzy, are you crying?"

I grabbed a tissue and dabbed at my eyes, swallowing hard. "I think I'm allergic to mascara," I managed to say, my voice hoarse.

"Oh no," Alice feigned concern, jumping into a flurry of action as she began patting cream on my eyelids, removing the offending product.

Rosalie watched us in the mirror, her expression telling me that she wasn't fooled.

No wonder the Romans thought the only good Amazon was a dead Amazon.

EPOV

"Agatha, tell me your heart-does it sometimes fly away, / Far from the dismal ocean of the unclean town, / Toward one still vaster, mirroring the splendid day, / Blue, limpid, deep, like the virginity once known?" - Baudelaire, Maesta et Errabunda, trans. George Dillon

The sight greeting me was far from ideal.

Swan had her back to me, long shiny curls bouncing up and down and dress swirling around her legs. Not that shiny curls or legs were objectionable in and of themselves-but said curls were only bouncing because Swan was bobbing her head from one panting dog to another, and the fabric around her legs was swishing in time with the bobbing.

I was leaning against the bar, sipping a beer and eavesdropping, very interested in the way the tan-skinned dogs seemed just shy of openly drooling over Swan. Every so often, one of them would make a remark and her head would bob in his direction, and the rest of the dogs would let their tongues roll right out of their mouths, a gleam in their eyes as they gave into their mutual fantasies of bending her over a desk. How could she be so oblivious?

I watched as the pup on the left gripped the neck of his beer, his eyes trained a foot below Swan's face.

Yeah, that was enough of that.

Creeping stealthily up behind Swan, I looped an arm around her waist.

"Hi," I smiled into her hair, gloating as the pups got an eyeful.

Swan nearly jumped out of her skin, meaning of course that I had to hold onto her so that she didn't fall over, but I let her spin around so that we were face to face. Luckily, her glass was empty, so nothing spilled.

I was ready to make some deprecating remark about teachers fraternizing with their students, but the criticism died on my lips.

She wasn't wearing her glasses, and I could see gold dancing under the brown waves.

Swan tried to gain some distance, but was hindered by the lap dogs, who were still standing too close for my liking. So she cocked her head in my direction. "This is Edward Cullen," she said to them. _Oh, so I was Cullen now?_

The disappointed puppies looked like they'd just been hit on the nose with a newspaper. _That's right fuckers. _

Swan turned to me. "We were discussing the political and cultural ramifications of maintaining an empire. Assimilation or acculturation? Hybridization or sycreticism?"

I grinned. "You were discussing the ramifications of empire? With _them_?" This was better than I'd thought.

Swan looked confused. "Why?" She looked down at the beer in her hand. "They're old enough to drink."

I laughed outright. "I just think it's strange that _they_ want to talk about something like this with _you_."

The dogs were scowling at me. That was alright.

"I used to be their TA," Swan tried to explain.

"Oh, I guessed that."

She shook her head. "Why shouldn't we be discussing history? Hayden White–"

I couldn't take it anymore. "Sorry boys, the lady and I have to talk."

"Is something wrong?" Swan asked, following me towards an open patch on the wall.

"Only your pig-headed refusal to see what was really going on back there."

"Which was?"

"They wanted to take teacher home."

Swan's jaw dropped. "You're insane!" she whisper-screamed after a beat. "They were just interested in the subject. Why shouldn't Native Americans want to understand Roman colonization? Marcus Aurelius' critiques of Syrian stupidity and Tacitus' noble savage? The models of Manifest Destiny, you know."

"I don't doubt it. I also don't doubt that their interest in your conversation had nothing to do with the topic at hand and everything to do with the dress you're wearing. Are you even wearing a bra?"

Swan looked down at herself and blushed.

When she looked back up, though, the corners of her mouth were turned down. She swallowed. "I don't see why you have to be like this."

"I just thought that you might want to be given a head's up, considering your aversion to certain pastimes. Should I have kept my mouth shut? Maybe you wanted one of them to take you home. Which one do you favor? I'll take you back so that you can proceed with the plan."

"You're not funny," she hissed.

She made a move to leave, and I shot out a hand to stop her, causing her to shy back into the wall. I stepped in front of her to block her escape route. "Let me go," she almost whispered, her eyes on the floor. "Mock someone else."

"Why do you think I'm mocking you?"

Swan's eyes rose to mine. "You're going to make me say it?"

"Say what?" I had an idea what she meant, but wanted to be sure.

Her eyes dropped again. "What you're proposing can't possibly be true. So I don't know why you're saying it. If not to be cruel."

"Why does it matter? You're not interested in them that way."

Her chin rose. "No, I'm not. I don't care."

I glanced over my shoulder, noting that the young pups were still eyeing us, taking in my position vis-à-vis Swan. I turned back towards the lady in question, leaning forward slightly so that she pressed herself further into the wall in a futile effort to put distance between us. "Unfortunately, a lack of interest on your part has had no impact on discouraging your admirers."

She started to slide along the wall, determined to escape.

"Regardless," I continued, "there's a flaw in your logic." I knew that would slow her down.

Swan slowly raised her face to look at mine.

"If you're so at peace with your inability to attract attention, why're you about to burst into tears over the issue?"

She looked me in the eye. "Evolutionary imperative," she suggested, her voice smoothing out as the quaver disappeared. Logic indeed. "Cultural conditioning. I'm evolved to want to find a mate. And culture agrees."

"But you disagree."

"Evolution encourages cockroaches to breed. That doesn't mean that they should."

I couldn't help my surprise. "You're a cockroach?"

"Isn't that what you think?" she sneered.

"Why would you believe that?"

"It's what you've always led me to believe."

I shook my head. "Aren't we past all that?"

"_I_'m past all that. It doesn't mean that I grant you the same privilege."

"Fine." I squared my shoulders. Maybe it would be as simple as an apology. Tanya would lose this contest before it even started. "I'm sorry."

Swan's eyes narrowed as she studied me. "Fuck off."

"What?" I was surprised.

"Fuck. Off."

"Alright, so what do you want to hear?"

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say."

"If it's not an apology you need, what is it? Why are you so hurt at the suggestion that those _boys_ were attracted to you?"

"Do we have to talk about this?"

"What else do we have to talk about?"

She looked over my shoulder.

"Answer the question."

She crossed her arms.

I couldn't help but laugh. She was so comical.

"I'm glad my life is so entertaining," she snapped, shoving me back, the sudden contact of her hands against my chest surprising me so much that I let her go.

I followed her back to my siblings' table. They were MIA at present, but the brain trust that was Alice had left her suitcase-slash-purse on her chair.

Swan began rooting through Alice's bag. "You know, I'm a good TA," she snapped. "They liked my class."

"Oh, they liked your class alright. It had nothing to do with your teaching abilities."

"Don't judge everyone by your standards, Masen. Besides, what could they possibly want from me now that I'm no longer their TA?" She pulled a pair of glasses out of Alice's purse and slipped them on.

"They want to know if you're still accepting extra credit.'

She shook her head slowly, watching me carefully, curls bouncing around her frames. "Just because you wanted to fuck your teachers doesn't mean they do," she decided.

I gestured towards the bar. "They're still watching you. Your every move. They're wondering if you're going to leave with me and if not, which of them has the best chance with you. If I hadn't come, they would have tried to talk you into going to some party."

"I wouldn't have gone," she said, her forehead furrowing.

"They still would have tried. They're probably arguing right now over whether or not you swallow when you give head."

Her jaw clenched. "I don't know what you mean."

I cocked an eyebrow.

"I mean," she clarified, "I don't _care_ to know what you mean." She flicked her hair over her shoulder.

"You get a great deal of traction out of this innocent façade of yours. It must be tiring."

"Less tiring than acknowledging vulgarity."

I smirked. "You come here in a dress like that with your hair like that, surrounding yourself with barely legal boys who'd like nothing more than to lick your neck, which, I might add, has been quite vulgarly exposed by this dress of yours, and you expect me to believe that?"

"Fuck you."

"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep."

Abruptly, Swan ducked under the table. I should have checked for weapons.

She reappeared with a backpack.

"Leaving already?" I asked, suddenly afraid that I'd pushed her too far.

Opting not to reply, she stalked off, heading towards the bathroom.

_Good job. Now how are you going to keep her from going?_

She reappeared a few minutes later, having changed into a pair of slacks and a button-up shirt. Reaching the table, she threw the dress across Alice's purse. "Here, tell your sister I said thanks."

She made to leave, but I blocked her path.

"If you would stop playing the Lady of Shallot for two minutes you would realize what an amazing woman you could be."

"_Could_ be?" she seethed, knocking my arm out of the way. "So I'm not amazing right now?"

"The insult exists only in your perception of yourself."

"_My _perception? How am is supposed to take it when someone tells me that I'm not amazing?"

"As a challenge to live up to your potential."

"I don't share your opinion as to what that means."

"And what _is _my opinion?"

"I don't know. The same as your sister's?" She glared at the dress. "I won't be a painted whore."

"You don't know me at all," I retorted.

"Yet you claim to know me so well," Swan pointed out. "Tell me what I don't understand. You keep telling me that I should _want _things. I don't want anything. You know all about my desires. I desire absence. It's a mercy that the Lady of Shallot died when she did."

I laughed mirthlessly. Swan thought death was a blessing? How many times had I planned to kill myself? She had no idea what she was talking about. "What is it you're afraid of?" I demanded.

"Being judged," Swan retorted.

"I don't judge you."

"You do nothing but."

I stifled a grimace. "I can't help it. You're so-unmade." It was true. She hid from life and hung out with children. I at least acted my age.

She cocked her head to the side. "That's how you see me? Unmade?"

"Unfinished. Undone."

"And how would you have me be finished?"

I paused. Could I say it out loud? "I would-I would have you _corrupted._"

Her jaw fell open and she gazed at me in shock. "Corrupted?" She was quiet for a moment, then pursed her lips. "What of you?" Swan's eyes swept over me, head to toe and back again. "Could you be corrupted too?"

"No. I'm already corrupt." The suggestion was nonsensical.

"So a person can only be corrupted towards-what is it-debauchery? You want me debauched?"

"I don't think you could resist. And afterwards…you wouldn't be the same. You wouldn't have to be. You'd be free. Don't you see?" For a minute, I felt like it was the truth "You've put yourself in a prison." She _had_, after all. She'd decided what she wanted out of life and blocked everything else out.

"I'm not in a prison. I'm happy."

"How can you be happy if you don't feel anything?"

"That's exactly it. I don't want to feel."

"But don't you realize what you're missing?"

She sneered. "What? A husband? Children?" I nodded and she went on. "Masen, I'll tell you what. I'll get married when you do."

I blinked, taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. "That's different. I've gone…too far, in my corruption. I'm no longer suitable for family-life. But I wouldn't let you travel so far off course." I wouldn't. I could stop myself from completely corrupting her, couldn't I?

"You wouldn't _let_ me travel off course? How kind."

She was ready to leave again. Frightened lamb.

Tensing, I made to block her escape once more, but held my ground lest so bold a move spur her into action.

I started to speak and hesitated. _'I mean to strike you without hate, as butchers do.'_

I shifted my gaze to somewhere in the middle of her forehead. "Would you consider a wager?" I asked, careful to keep my tone light.

"What?"

"A wager."

"What would I have to do?"

"Nothing you didn't want to," I reassured her, meeting her eyes again. "Just give yourself up, to sensation, from time to time, under my guidance."

She stared at me, dumbfounded. "Why?"

"Why not?"

"Why would you do this?"

"It would…please me to see you corrupted."

I held my breath, watching as an emotion I couldn't identify flashed over Swan's face, and she closed her eyes.

And just like that, I felt something inside of me snap, a chill running down my spine. I had gone too far. Swan would be walking out of this bar in a few short minutes and I would be alone.

Again.

No. I was alone regardless of whether or not Swan walked out of this bar. I was always alone. I had no one and nothing. If anything, she needed me. _'I am the sinister glass in which the fury sees her glaring eyes.'_

At last, Swan looked at me, a steely resolve flashing in the depths of her eyes. "If I'm vulnerable to corruption, then so are you."

I gaped. "I can't become a virgin again."

She tsked, playing with the straps of her backpack. "You're a fish eater."

"A what?"

"You're profligate, and thus entirely untrustworthy in your political and social dealings. You can be bought, because you are so utterly lost to your own desires." Swan nodded. "But you can be seduced away from that."

I laughed. "How do you propose to seduce me away from seduction?"

"It's as good as done." She tapped a finger against her chin. "That is, if you can read. You _can_ read, can't you?"

"I can _read_."

"Excellent. Your corruption will involve reading."

"I think you do too much reading. Your corruption will involve _experience._"

Panic flashed over her face before she schooled her features. "The results of the corruption—which of us has succeeded—will have to be mutually determined. That's the only thing that makes sense."

"I win when you agree that you've been corrupted."

"And vice versa."

I conceded, smiling at the ease of this. And to think that she imagined that she could corrupt _me_. "What are we competing for?"

She smiled too. "Why, merely the pleasure of corrupting another, of course."

"I accept your terms."

"Do we have to shake hands?" Swan asked, suddenly looking worried.

"What?"

"I don't want to shake hands."

Was she serious? "We don't have to."

"Alright." Swan sighed in relief, then cast a guilty glance towards the bar, where my sister and Emmett stood, oblivious.

"Tell your sister I had papers to grade but I'll come next time."

"Next time?"

"Sure, next time," Swan promised, backing away.

"Of course you will. I have to start with your corruption."

Swan pursed her lips. "Right, my corruption." And then she was gone.

Something thumped against my back.

"Where's Izzy?" Alice demanded.

"Ministering to orphans."

"But this was a gift," Alice pouted, picking up the dress.

"It really didn't fit."

"What do you mean? It was perfect."

"Perfect." I couldn't stop the chuckle passing from my lips.

"What's wrong with you?"

"From under either lid her tears will flow to inundate this huge Sahara which is I." Grabbing Alice's hand, I pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

"Are you drunk?"

"Drunk with those tears, desire will live again."

Alice pulled her hand away. "Have you ever considered that you might be manic depressive?"

"I am indeed condemned to laugh, but can smile no more."

"If you're just going to make fun of me with poetry, you can leave."

"But Alice, our corruption will involve reading, didn't she tell you?"

"Who?"

"She'll come next time. She promised."

With that, I bowed quickly and made good my escape, strangely euphoric.

It was the game, the thrill of the hunt, I decided. _'I am the wound, I am the knife.' _What had Swan to lose? Nothing.

I'd let her think that she was my Ariadne, leading me out of the labyrinth. And I'd see to it that she avoided those dangers to which I'd fallen victim.

When I was done with her, I'd leave her of course.

She'd be alone for a time, yes.

But ready for a god to marry.

**AN**

Fic rec - **Bookends By: Bella's Executioner**. It makes me want to delete everything I've ever posted and start over.

Horror vacui - horror of vacant spaces

"I mean to strike you without hate, / As butchers do…From under either lid / Your tears will flow to inundate / This huge Sahara which is I. / Desire…caught in the flood will live again…Drunk with those tears…I am the sinister glass in which / The fury sees her glaring eyes…I am the wound, I am the knife….I am indeed of those / Condemned for ever without repose To laugh, but who can smile no more." - Baudelaire, Heauton Timouroumenos, trans. George Dillon

Fish eater – Classical Greek synonym for a hedonist

Lady of Shallot – I really should be chastised for mixing my metaphors, but the necrophilia of ancient Greco-Roman literature bars excess grief over a dead virgin. And really, who can blame them?

Reviewers – How shall I reward you? Hmm, reply in a reasonable timeframe? _Goal_. Provide meaning for the otherwise meaningless? _Impossible_. Preview for the next chapter? _Does anyone really care?_ Outtake for Angela and Bella preparing to go to Breaking Dawn for the first time? _Score._


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